Algeria, Mali to strengthen border security

Source:Xinhua Published: 2014-3-9 9:03:26

Visiting Malian defence minister said on Saturday that his country hopes to strengthen the security cooperation with Algeria along their borders, which the latter closed earlier last year due to tensions in north Mali.

"We will revive our security cooperation in border areas which had been suspended by necessity because Mali could no longer control these regions," Malian Defence Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga said after meeting with Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra.

Maiga has requested Algeria to start exploratory talks in relation to the crisis in north Mali. He and his Algerian counterpart signed a minute on military cooperation between the countries.

But Lamamra evoked the issue of the abduction of Algerian diplomats in north Mali in April 2012. He said that the case was a matter of "constantly agenda" in Algerian-Malian discussions.

Algeria decided to close its border with Mali in January last year, as the security situation in north Mali deteriorated after the intervention of Franco-African forces to chase away extremist armed groups there.

Later in November Algeria said that opening the borders in the extreme south was not on its agenda.

Posted in: Africa

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