Ministers from three of Mali's neighbours will meet Sunday to discuss the crisis in the country, where a Tuareg rebellion has declared independence of the north, Algerian media said. The APS news agency said Mali itself will not be represented at the talks in Nouakchott of ministers from Algeria, Mauritania and Niger.
All four countries have an agreement to exchange intelligence and carry out joint military operations in the face of Islamist and other insurgencies and cross-border crime. Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia told France's Le Monde daily Friday that regional military chiefs would also meet in the Mauritanian capital in the next few days to review the situation in Mali.
Mali's main Tuareg rebel group Friday declared independence for the northern territory it seized from government forces along with an Islamist group, taking advantage of a military coup in Bamako. However the links between the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and the Islamist group Ansar Dine, which says it is fighting a holy war and rejects independence, are unclear. The Algerian foreign ministry said Thursday that Islamists kidnapped seven Algerian diplomats in the north-eastern Mali city of Gao.
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