RABAT, August 20. /TASS/. Algeria remains convinced that a negotiated political solution is still possible to the crisis around Niger, where the military ousted President Mohamed Bazoum at the end of July, the Algerian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"Algeria continues to be guided by the firm conviction that a negotiated political settlement is still possible, that all avenues that could lead to it have not yet been walked, and that all these possibilities have not been exhausted," the statement said. "At a time when military intervention in Niger is becoming increasingly imminent, Algeria deeply regrets that the use of force has taken precedence over the course of a negotiated political settlement that would restore peacefully the constitutional and democratic order in this brotherly and neighboring country."
"The history of our region has taught a convincing lesson that military interventions have brought more problems than solutions and that they have been additional factors of confrontation and suffering rather than sources of stability and security," the Foreign Ministry said. "Before the irreparable is done and before the region is drawn into a spiral of violence, whose unpredictable consequences no one can predict, Algeria calls on all parties to exercise restraint, prudence and common sense."
Algeria called for prioritizing "a negotiated political solution to the current constitutional crisis, thereby sparing brotherly Niger and the entire region from a future that’s full of threats and dangers".
Algeria is a neighbor of Niger and shares a land border with it that is more than 950 km long.
Niger’s mutiny
In late July, a group of military rebels in Niger announced the ouster of President Mohamed Bazoum. They then established the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, headed by General Abdourahmane Tchiani, to run the country. Leaders of the ECOWAS countries slapped harsh sanctions on Niger and demanded that the mutinous soldier release Bazoum, or face the use of force.