France can no longer draft resolutions and declarations concerning the Republic of Mali within the framework of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the Malian government said in a March 1 letter to Pedro Comissario Afonso, president of the Security Council and Ambassador of Mozambique to the UN.
"Pending the special meeting of the Security Council requested by Mali, the government of the Republic of Mali […] officially challenges France's penholder status on all questions examined by the Security Council concerning Mali," reads the letter.
France has been responsible for producing all the drafts in the UN Security Council concerning Mali since December 2012.
In August 2022, Mali complained to the Security Council about acts of aggression, subversion, destabilization and violation of Malian airspace by aircraft of the French armed forces.
"These facts [...] raise questions about the objectivity and impartiality of the French Republic," notes the letter.
French troops' presence in Mali was been established in 2013 under the pretext of countering the surge of terrorist activities in the Sahel region after the 2011 intervention in Libya by NATO forces. The power vacuum in Libya gave rise to many rebel groups, including those who were loyal to Daesh* and al-Qaeda*, which spread beyond Libya's borders.
Mali achieved French troops withdrawal from its country on 15 August 2022, as it was requested by the Malian government. Earlier that year, Bamako terminated its bilateral defense agreements with France, accusing its former metropole of "a de-facto partition of the West African country."
"The intervention [of France] turned into a de-facto partition of Mali, which contributed to the sanctuarisation of our territories for the terrorists who had time to take refuge and reorganise themselves in order to come back in force," Malian Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga said, speaking to diplomats in Bamako, Mali.
* terrorist organizations banned in Russia and other countries