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West African Envoys Meet Mali's Military Junta


West African envoys held talks with Mali's military junta on Saturday to try to push for a speedy return to civilian rule after a coup in the troubled nation.


The delegation, headed by former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, held talks for half an hour with soldiers who seized power on Tuesday, including new strongman colonel Assimi Goita, an AFP journalist said.


The envoys from the regional ECOWAS bloc also hope to meet ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who is being detained by the junta at a military camp outside Bamako.


Rebel soldiers seized Keita and other leaders after a mutiny on Tuesday, dealing another deep blow to a country already struggling with a brutal extremist insurgency and widespread public discontent over its government.


Mali's neighbors have called for Keita to be reinstated, saying the purpose of the delegation's visit was to help "ensure the immediate return of constitutional order".


"ECOWAS appreciates what is happening in Mali and ECOWAS wants the best for the country," Jonathan said after his arrival.


"We're going to discuss with all stakeholders and I think at the end of the day we'll come out with something that is good for the country, good for ECOWAS and good for the international community."


A delegation official said they would meet Keita, who is being held with prime minister Boubou Cisse in Kati, a military base northwest of Bamako where the coup was unleashed.


Adding to the international pressure, the United States on Friday suspended military aid to Mali, with no further training or support of the Mali armed forces.


'We won'


But thousands of jubilant Malians took to the streets of Bamako on Friday to celebrate the toppling of Keita, who was reelected in 2018 but became the focus of widespread discontent.


The crowds gathered in Bamako's central square draped in the national flag and blasting on vuvuzela horns.


The rally, originally organized as an anti-Keita protest by a loose coalition that has led months of mass rallies against him, was recast to "celebrate the victory of the Malian people".


"I am overjoyed! We won," said Mariam Cisse, 38.


Speaking at the rally Ismael Wague, spokesman for the junta which calls itself the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, paid tribute to the public.


"We merely completed the work that you began and we recognize ourselves in your fight," he said.


'Transitional council'


The junta has said it welcomes the ECOWAS visit but has not talked of restoring Keita to power.


"A transitional council, with a transitional president who is going to be either military or civilian" would be appointed, Wague told France 24 television Thursday.


Keita won election in a landslide in 2013, presenting himself as a unifying figure in a fractured country, and was re-elected in 2018 for another five-year term.


But he failed to make headway against the extremist revolt that has left swathes of the country in the hands of armed radicals and ignited ethnic violence in the country's volatile center.


Thousands of UN and French troops, along with soldiers from five Sahel countries, have been deployed to try to stem the bloodshed.


In a sign of the continuing challenge facing the country, four soldiers were killed Saturday by an explosive device in the center of the country.


The ECOWAS visit to Mali comes after the UN's peacekeeping mission in the country said a human rights team had gained access to the ousted president and other detainees on Thursday.


A junta member said the coup leaders had released former economy minister Abdoulaye Daffe and Sabane Mahalmoudou, Keita's private secretary, calling the move "proof that we respect human rights".


While Keita and Cisse have no television, radio or phone, other detainees are in a training center, where they are sleeping on mattresses and have a TV, according to witnesses to the visit.


The 75-year-old ousted president "looked tired but relaxed," they said, describing his conditions as "acceptable".


Tuesday's coup was the second in eight years, and has heightened concern over regional stability as its extremist insurgency that now threatens neighboring Niger and BuBurki Faso.

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