Leaders of the Sahel states of Mali, Burkina Faso met in the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou, on Feb. 15, to prepare a treaty of confederation. The meeting follows their announcement in January that all three countries were renouncing their membership in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). They charged that ECOWAS, which had slapped sanctions on all three countries, had become a tool of the imperialists.
“The meeting that brought together some 20 ministers from the three countries, including Burkinabe Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore, is intended to become a framework that aims to revisit the charter of the Alliance of Sahel States and work out a treaty that establishes a confederation uniting the three countries—Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger,” the Burkinabe Foreign Ministry said in a statement on social media, reported Sputnik.
Niger’s Defense Minister Gen. Salifou Modi also said that the meeting would “create an institutional structure” for the Alliance of Sahel States, adding that this mechanism would allow the alliance and confederation to “function effectively to the great joy of the populations” of the three countries. The Alliance of Sahel States was signed in September 2023 as a “a collective defense architecture.” A confederation of these three states would have a combined population of over 70 million.
