Mali PM rules out federal state
2013-02-21 15:46
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Mali
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Paris - Mali's Prime Minister Diango Cissoko on Thursday
ruled out the creation of a federal state as a solution to the conflict in the
north of the country, in an interview with French daily Le Monde.
"We are ready to talk about everything with everyone,
not only the communities of the north. But it is out of the question to speak
of federalism. We will not debate the partition of the country either,"
Cissoko said.
More than a month after the start of French military
intervention in his deeply poor, partly desert nation to help fight armed
Islamists, the Bamako government agreed to hold talks with northern
populations, including the ethnic Tuaregs, who have a history of insurgency.
"I hope it will begin as of the month of March,"
said Cissoko, who announced on Tuesday during a visit to Paris that the
government planned to set up a "dialogue and reconciliation"
commission.
Officially, the Tuareg leaders of the National Movement for
the Liberation of the Azawad ((MNLA) have renounced a claim to independence for
the northern territory they call the Azawad.
During a press conference Tuesday in Paris, Cissoko said
that the MNLA's time was over and "there is no more reason for it to exist
[because] it recognises the integrity, the unity and the secular nature of the
state."
"We will not debate the secular nature of the
state," the prime minister told Le Monde, 10 months after armed Islamists
started to impose strict Muslim sharia law in the north, including in the main
towns of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu.
"We are open to all dialogue with every community when
it comes to local development and increasing decentralisation. We are also
ready to consider a form of sharing out the territory: creating more regions,
local adminstrations, circles and districts in the north," he told the
paper.
However, he rejected the argument that Bamako had long
ignored the north of Mali. "The feeling of marginalisation among the
people stems from the fact that carrying out projects is much more difficult.
You need to invest four or five times what you do in the south to obtain the
same result.
"Only the limited nature of the country's resources has
compelled us to make choices," he added.
