March 2 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Burkina Faso’s military junta has denounced a military assistance agreement signed in 1961 with France and has given a month’s deadline for the withdrawal from the country of all military personnel from the European country who are still in Burkinabe’s administrative ranks.
The Burkinabé Ministry of Foreign Affairs has informed France that it “denounces the technical military assistance agreement, signed in Paris on April 24, 1961 between the Republic of Upper Volta -the name of the country during the French colonial period– and the Republic of France, including its annexes”.
Likewise, it has outlined that “this denunciation enters into force within a period of one month from its receipt”, for which reason it has demanded that “diligent measures” be adopted for “the definitive withdrawal of all French military personnel in service in the French military administrations”.
The breakdown of the 1961 agreement, which allowed France to provide financial, military and training support to the Burkinabé army, which included the presence of military instructors, comes at a time of tension between the junta and the French authorities.
The French military operation in Burkina Faso officially concluded on February 19 after the termination of the agreement signed between the two countries for the fight against jihadism in the Sahel, amid a distancing from the Paris junta and a rapprochement with Moscow.
Burkina Faso, ruled by a military junta since a previous January 2022 coup against then-president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. The junta is now headed by Ibrahim Traoré, who led a coup in September that was considered a “palace coup” against the until then leader, Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.
The attacks, carried out by both the Al Qaeda affiliate and the Islamic State affiliate in the region, have also contributed to an increase in inter-communal violence and have caused self-defense groups to flourish, to which the Burkinabe government has added ‘volunteers ‘. The deterioration of security has caused a wave of internally displaced persons and refugees to other countries in the region.
