OUAGADOUGOU (Dispatches) – Burkina Faso has confirmed it is asking France to pull its troops out of the insurgency-hit country within a month, a government spokesman said on Monday.
“We are terminating the agreement which allows French forces to be in Burkina Faso. This is not the end of diplomatic relations between Burkina Faso and France,” spokesman Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo told Radio-Television Burkina (RTB).
French President Emmanuel Macron said during a news conference in Paris on Sunday that the message from Burkina Faso was “confusing” with junta leader Ibrahim Traore away from the capital, Ouagadougou.
Citing the official Agence d’Information du Burkina, national broadcaster RTB reported Saturday that the junta government had decided Wednesday to end the French military presence in the country.
Anti-French sentiment has grown in Burkina Faso, a former French colony, since Traore seized power in September. Traore has been more overtly open to working with other countries, notably Russia.
“Russia is a reasonable choice in this dynamic,” Burkinabe Prime Minister Apollinaire Kyelem de Tembela said last week following a meeting with the Russian ambassador. “We think our partnership has to be strengthened,” he added.
Kyelem de Tembela visited Moscow early in December.
Protesters took to the streets of Ouagadougou this month to call for the ouster of the French ambassador and the closure of a French military base north of the capital. About 400 French special forces soldiers are currently based there, FRANCE 24 reported.
France finished withdrawing its troops from Mali after nine years. Many of the French soldiers are now based in Niger and Chad instead.
Terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda and Deash have inflicted heavy casualties on the region’s armies, killing soldiers in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali almost every week in scattered attacks despite the presence of foreign troops in the restive area.
The United Nations has said the spread of terrorist attacks in West Africa was so fast that the region had to consider bolstering its response beyond current military efforts.
Amid raging violence, unconfirmed local reports have claimed that French convoys were delivering arms to the takfiri militants.