Like his predecessor, Captain Ibrahim Traore, the leader of the transition in Burkina Faso has chosen Mali for his first trip abroad.
President Traore is expected Wednesday November 2, 2022, for a working and friendship visit in Bamako, says a note from the Malian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, received by APA.
His plane will arrive at 3pm and take off at 5:40pm from the President Modibo Keita Senou International Airport. Minister Abdoulaye Diop has “invited the heads of diplomatic missions” to the presidential lounge of the airport for the “protocol ceremonies on arrival and departure” of the guest of the day.
The Burkina side has not commented on the planned trip. “It is not yet confirmed, otherwise there would have been a press release,” a close aide of the new strong man insists.
In any case, this will be Captain Ibrahim Traore’s first official trip abroad since his designation as President of Faso at the end of a national conference held on Friday, October 14, 2022. His predecessor, Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba, also made his first official visit to Bamako last September. The former transitional president met with Colonel Assimi Goita, with whom he discussed the need for their two countries to work together to defeat the jihadist groups that have been destabilizing the central Sahel for several years.
Windata Zongo, a member of the African Center for Diplomatic and Strategic Analysis and Research, believes that after Bamako’s withdrawal from the G5 Sahel, “there is now a need (for Burkina Faso) to create a bilateral framework (with Mali) to make counterterrorism operations more effective” on the borders between the two countries.
DS/ac/fss/abj/APA