Norway will shut its embassy in Mali, citing the safety scenario

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Norway introduced Thursday that it’s going to shut its embassy in Mali, saying the withdrawal of a U.N. peacekeeping drive from the West African nation “will have consequences for the security of Norwegian and other diplomatic missions and international organizations.”

In June, Mali Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop demanded that U.N. peacekeepers who’ve been grappling with an Islamic insurgency for greater than a decade depart instantly, saying they’d failed of their mission.

At the top of the month, the U.N. Security Council adopted a decision terminating the mandate for the U.N. drive, referred to as MINUSMA, and requesting that its withdrawal be accomplished by the top of the yr.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt mentioned the embassy in Bamako, Mali’s capital, will shut by the top of the yr and Norway may have ”to seek out different methods to comply with up our pursuits in Mali transferring ahead.” The diplomatic mission additionally represents Norway in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad.

Last yr, Col. Assimi Goita, who had himself appointed Mali’s transitional president, ordered French troops and a European Union drive to go away the nation.

The U.N. peacekeepers had been a contingent of greater than 15,000 in what has change into one of the vital harmful U.N. missions on this planet. At least 170 peacekeepers have been killed within the nation since 2013, in response to the United Nations.

Mali has struggled to comprise an Islamic extremist insurgency since 2012. Extremist rebels had been pressured from energy in Mali’s northern cities the next yr with the assistance of a French-led navy operation, however they regrouped within the desert and commenced launching assaults on the Malian military and its allies.