The president of?Mali, Amadou Toumani Touré, resigned on Sunday, and the soldiers who ousted him in a coup promised to hand power to the president of the National Assembly.
Neighbouring states meeting to discuss turmoil in the north of the country, one of the main reasons for the military's deposal of Touré, differed over whether to crush the northern rebels, a mix of Tuareg separatists and Islamists with links to al-Qaida, or negotiate with them.
The twin crises – a coup in the capital and the rebel seizure of the north – have threatened Mali's reputation for democracy and widened a security void that countries fear will exacerbate regional instability, terrorism and smuggling.
“We have just received the formal letter of resignation from President Amadou Toumani Touré,” said Djibril Bassole, Burkina Faso's foreign minister, a leading mediator for West Africa's?ECOWAS?bloc.
“We will now contact the competent authorities so that the vacancy of the presidency would be established and so that they take the appropriate measures,” Bassole added after Touré met mediators in an upmarket villa in central Bamako.
A Reuters journalist at the villa said Touré, who has been in hiding since the coup, was dressed in a white flowing boubou robe and matching hat, and looked relaxed after meeting mediators.
After three days of negotiations and growing international pressure to step aside, Mali's junta announced late on Friday that it would begin a power handover in return for an amnesty from prosecution and the lifting of trade and other sanctions.
According to the agreement signed with mediators, the junta must now make way for a unity government, with the speaker of the Malian parliament, Diouncounda Traore, as interim president.
It is not clear when elections, which had been due on April 29, will be held, as the north is now in the hands of a mix of separatist Tuareg-led rebels and Islamist fighters seeking to impose sharia law across Mali.
At a meeting of regional countries in Mauritania, Niger said on Sunday that the rebels' gains should be reversed before any talks, but Algeria warned that military intervention risked further complicating the situation.
The rebels, bolstered by guns and fighters from Libya's war last year, routed Malian troops, in disarray after the coup, and carved out out a zone the size of France in Mali's desert north.
The separatist National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad?have declared an independent state of “Azawad”, a move universally rejected by neighbouring states and world organisations.
The group does not have control of large chunks of the territory it lays claim to and has an uneasy relationship with Ansar Dine, another Tuareg-led group that swept south and wants to impose sharia law.
Culled from The Gurdian