Blinken, AU Commission chair discuss Niger, Sudan

WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with African Union (AU) Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat on Tuesday and discussed the developments in Niger and Sudan, the State Department said.

"Secretary Blinken and Chairperson Faki reiterated the shared US-AU priorities of seeing the immediate release of (Niger) President Mohamed Bazoum," the State Department said in a statement, adding they also stressed there was no military solution to the crisis in Sudan.

Niger announced overnight that it was reopening its borders with several of its neighbours, a week after a coup that has been condemned by foreign powers and raised fears of a wider conflict in West Africa's Sahel region.

Defence chiefs from regional bloc ECOWAS will start a two-day meeting in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Wednesday to discuss the situation in Niger, where ECOWAS has threatened to use force if soldiers do not reinstate the elected president.

A delegation from the regional bloc is also expected to arrive in Niger's capital Niamey on Wednesday to start talks with the junta, led by General Abdourahmane Tiani.

"The land and air borders with Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Libya and Chad are re-opened from today, August 1, 2023," junta spokesperson Colonel Amadou Abdramane said in a televised address.

The junta closed the borders last Wednesday, at the same time that it announced that it had removed democratically elected President Bazoum from power.

Niger's coup was the seventh military takeover in less than three years in West and Central Africa, where some of the coup-hit countries have banded together in opposition to the rest of the 15-nation regional bloc.