On a friendship and working visit to Cote d’Ivoire, Paul-Henri Damiba pledges to organize elections for a return to constitutional order in Burkina Faso.
Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, President of the transition and Head of State of Burkina Faso, at the end of an audience with Alassane Ouattara on Monday, expressed gratitude for the support he has received since the advent of 24 January 2022.
“You have personally accompanied and supported the efforts of ECOWAS (in the crisis that Burkina Faso is going through) and in the process of recreating better social cohesion in the country,” said the Burkinabe president.
He then said that Burkina Faso would “rely on the experience of Cote d’Ivoire in terms of cohesion to restore some calm” in his country.
The Burkinabe Head of State also shared the security concerns in his country and reassured that “the commitments made at the level of ECOWAS and the international community will be respected” in the framework of the transition in Burkina Faso.
This, he continued, should make it possible to “bring back a little more stability to the interior of the country and to organise elections for a return to constitutional order”. This was the message that he and his delegation had come to bring to Mr. Alassane Ouattara.
“Be reassured by the commitments made by Burkina Faso to the international community,” insisted the president of Burkina Faso, who is making his second official visit outside the country after Mali on Saturday.
“At the level of ECOWAS, we considered that Burkina was making a lot of efforts and should continue to be supported and that we should ensure that you can establish a transition timetable that is reasonable and this is what you have done,” Ouattara said.
For Ouattara, “the end of this process must be democratic elections, when the time comes, and we trust you in your decision to respect the commitments you have made with ECOWAS bodies.
” Cote d’Ivoire will always support your efforts,” he added, expressing the “compassion of all Ivorians for all the victims with the situation of terrorist groups who are doing a lot of damage in Burkina”.
He congratulated his host, the President of Burkina Faso, for all the efforts being made to control this situation, noting that terrorist attacks concern the entire sub-region and in this context Cote d’Ivoire will continue to exchange information.
“I would also like to tell you how much we appreciated the dialogue and reconciliation initiatives,” he said. For him, this is an “important vector for recreating trust between the different populations in the same country”.
The Ivorian Head of State reiterated his “readiness to resume and strengthen economic and financial cooperation” between the two neighbouring countries, which share age-old ties, in the framework of sub-regional integration.
AP/lb/abj/APA