MADRID Jan. 11 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The French Army has handed over the Abéché military base to its Chadian counterparts as part of the process of French military withdrawal from the African country, which will culminate on January 31, after the breakdown of the mutual security agreement on November 28 of last year.
The decision by N’Djamena, a key ally of France in the region and a country that hosts the largest French military base on the continent, came after the military junta of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger broke their military ties with Paris and will stage a rapprochement with Russia.
These three countries also announced their departure from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the creation of the Alliance of Sahel States, amid criticism from France and its Western allies and their skepticism about the role of Russia and the expansion of the branches of Al Qaeda and Islamic State in the region.
This Saturday’s ceremony at this base in the east of the country was presided over by the Chadian Minister of the Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs, Issakha Maloua Djamous, accompanied by the commander of the French forces in the Sahel, Colonel Boris Pomirol, who has assured that bilateral cooperation will continue in the future.
At the ceremony, reported by Tchadinfos, Djamous recalled that France’s withdrawal is part of a declared desire to strengthen national sovereignty. “A sovereign State must trust in its own capacity to defend its territorial integrity. This fullness of competence that means sovereignty, obtained after independence, cannot be shared,” he stated.
For the French colonel, the surrender of Abéché and the withdrawal of the military does not represent “a farewell from France, but that of its soldiers” and an assurance that “the cooperation of the two nations will not end here.”
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