Lansana Kouyat\u00e9, a former Guinean prime minister, has been tasked with re-establishing dialogue with Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso after their withdrawal from the regional bloc last year.<\/p>\n
West African states have appointed a new mediator to try to bridge the divide with three junta-led countries that quit the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in January 2025.<\/p>\n
Lansana Kouyat\u00e9, a former Guinean prime minister and ex-ECOWAS executive secretary, confirmed to AFP that he had been named \u201cchief negotiator with the AES countries\u201d.<\/p>\n
A fragmented region<\/strong><\/p>\n Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso\u2014all ruled by juntas that took power between 2020 and 2023\u2014left ECOWAS to form their own Alliance of Sahel States (AES).<\/p>\n The trio has drawn closer politically to Moscow and repeatedly criticised coastal West African nations that maintain ties with former colonial power France.<\/p>\n An ECOWAS presidency source in Abuja said Kouyat\u00e9\u2019s appointment aimed at \u201cbringing the peoples of the west African community closer together\u201d.<\/p>\n A Sierra Leonean presidency source called Kouyat\u00e9 \u201ca great diplomat\u201d whose experience could help build ties.<\/p>\n Previous efforts fail<\/strong><\/p>\n ECOWAS had previously tasked Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye with mediation in July 2024.<\/p>\n Ghana\u2019s President John Dramani Mahama also toured the three countries in March 2025, but neither succeeded in convincing the juntas to return.<\/p>\n All three AES nations are battling long-running jihadist insurgencies led by groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lansana Kouyat\u00e9, a former Guinean prime minister, has been tasked with re-establishing dialogue with Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso after their withdrawal from the regional bloc last year. West African states have appointed a new mediator to try to bridge the divide with three junta-led countries that quit the Economic Community of West African States […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":18,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Africa News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,2362,33,27],"tags":[208,311,248,4975,187,383],"class_list":["post-20285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-burkina-faso","tag-economic-community-of-west-african-states-ecowas","tag-guinea","tag-lansana-kouyate","tag-mali","tag-niger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20287,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20285\/revisions\/20287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}