French President, Emmanuel Macron, has contacted his Algerian counterpart, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, over finding ways to restart a stalled peace process for Mali, said a source from Macron’s camp.
The source, who declined to be identified, said on Thursday that Macron had proposed “concrete measures” over the situation in Mali.
He gave no precise details.
Algeria brokered a peace deal between various Mali factions in 2015 and heads the follow-up committee.
The agreement has yet to be fully implemented and the security situation in the former French colony has worsened.
Mali is struggling to contain militant movements in the north of the country, where rival militias frequently clash and Islamist groups carry out attacks on civilians, Malian soldiers, UN peacekeepers and French forces there.
NAN reports that the signing of the “Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali, resulting from the Algiers Process” (the “Bamako Agreement”) was supposed to usher in a new era of peace and stability in Mali.
An alliance of Tuareg-led rebels and the Malian government signed a peace deal on Saturday which is meant to draw a line under a 2012 uprising.
The Algerian-brokered deal, signed by a representative of the rebel Coordination of Movements of Azawad in the Malian capital Bamako, hands greater autonomy to the sparsely populated northern region of Mali in a bid to put an end to a cycle of four uprisings since independence from France in 1960.
The Algiers Accord aims to bring stability to the country’s vast northern desert, cradle of several Tuareg uprisings since the 1960s and a sanctuary for armed fighters linked to al-Qaeda.
The document had already been signed in May by the government and loyalist fighters, but the CMA, a coalition of rebel groups, had been holding out until amendments were agreed to two weeks ago.
The rebels finally agreed to commit on June 5 after winning a stipulation that its fighters be included in a security force for the north, and that residents of the region be represented better in government institutions, among other concessions.
Mali was shaken by a coup in 2012 that cleared the way for Tuareg separatists to seize towns and cities of the north.
Al-Qaeda-linked fighters then overpowered the Tuareg, taking control of northern Mali for nearly 10 months until they were ousted in a French-led military offensive.
The country remains deeply divided, with the Tuareg and Arab populations of the north accusing sub-Saharan ethnic groups in the more prosperous south of marginalising them.