(Bloomberg) -- West African leaders arrived in Mali Saturday in a bid to convince the military junta to reverse a coup that ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
“We arrived in Bamako this afternoon to continue with (our) mediation and peace talks towards resolving Mali's political crisis and restoring normalcy in this beautiful West African country,” former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who's leading the Economic Community of West African States delegation, said in a tweet Saturday.
Ecowas has called for Keita to be reinstated. The delegation's goal is to make the junta “understand that our sub-region no longer accepts the forceful takeover of power,” Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou, the current head of the leadership group, said Thursday after a meeting of regional heads of state.
Keita, 75, dissolved his government and resigned Tuesday under pressure from soldiers who detained him hours after they staged a mutiny at an army barracks on the outskirts of the capital, Bamako. Previous mediation efforts by Ecowas failed to resolve the impasse between Keita's government and a popular protest movement that had demanded he step down before he was eventually seized by soldiers.
Keita remains in captivity with top members of his cabinet.
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