BAMAKO, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- National dialogue is the most ideal solution to Mali crisis and it must be held in Bamako, Mali's ex-foreign minister Tiebile Drame said during a recent interview with Xinhua.
"The solution to the crisis that keeps getting worse is neither in Brussels, Washington, Paris or New York. It is in Bamako. It requires national dialogue," Drame affirmed.
Drame is currently the president of the opposition Party for National Renaissance (PARENA) and was the former negotiator for the Ouagadougou preliminary agreement that was signed on June 18, 2013, which resulted into the holding of Mali's presidential and legislative elections.
He welcomed a recent position taken by ex-defense minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga, a key supporter of the current regime, who told Xinhua recently that "without national consensus, it will be impossible to implement the Mali peace and reconciliation agreement."
The agreement was signed in June 2015, between the Mali government and armed groups operating in the northern parts of the country.
"Even before the signing of the Algiers agreement, PARENA and other opposition parties urged the president of the republic to organize inter-Malians national dialogue to mobilize all the people to support the process of restoring peace and stability in the country," Drame recalled.
"But the president of the republic and the government remained deaf to these calls. Presidential majority parties equally supported their position which ended up costing the country a lot. However, it is not too late to take action and save Mali," the former foreign minister said.
He regretted that "14 months since the signing of the peace agreement, there is neither peace nor national reconciliation in Mali."
"The general situation in the country has worsened to levels never witnessed before. Blood is flowing in Mali like never before. Hundreds of Malians and foreigners have died in the last 12 months," he said.
He urged government officials to "open their eyes and support the position taken by ex-defense minister Maiga.
"Given the continued deterioration of the general situation in the country, the multiplication of bloody attacks against our forces and their foreign counterparts, the upsurge of inter-ethnic clashes and targeted assassinations, the growing dangerous situation in Mopti and given the rising tension in Timbuktu, today more than ever before, national dialogue is indispensable to save the country and restore stability," Drame concluded.
