Algeria has recalled its ambassadors from Mali and Niger for consultations and has postponed the deployment of its new ambassador to Burkina Faso, in response to these countries’ decision to withdraw their envoys from Algiers on Sunday.
The move followed a joint statement—later reinforced by a separate communiqué from Mali’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs—accusing Algeria of “supporting international terrorism.”
In a statement released Monday morning, Algeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs firmly rejected the allegations, describing them as “false and nothing more than desperate and pathetic attempts to distract attention from the utter failure of the ongoing coup-led project, which has plunged Mali into a spiral of insecurity, instability, devastation, and deprivation.”
The Algerian foreign ministry went further in its condemnation, characterizing Mali’s transitional government as “a coup-driven junta clinging to power, squandering the country's limited resources at the expense of its development.”
Algeria also defended its decision to shoot down a Malian drone, asserting that the aircraft had violated Algerian airspace by 1.6 kilometers, exited the area, and then returned in an aggressive trajectory, prompting its downing.
Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso issued a joint statement on Sunday announcing the recall of their ambassadors in Algeria for consultations.
Additionally, Mali summoned the Algerian ambassador in protest over the downing of a reconnaissance drone near the Algerian border. According to the Algerian military, the drone had “penetrated Algerian airspace by two kilometers.”
Mali’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs later declared that the country had withdrawn from the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee with Algeria following the incident involving the downed military drone near their shared border.
The transitional government in Mali stated that initial findings of an investigation into the drone incident indicated that the aircraft was “brought down as a result of a deliberate hostile act by the Algerian regime,” and that the incident occurred within Malian territory. In response, the Malian authorities took a series of escalatory diplomatic actions, including recalling their ambassador from Algiers and filing a complaint with relevant international bodies.
