The ruling junta in Mali announced, on Thursday 25 January, the “end, with immediate effect”, of the Algiers agreement signed in 2015 with the pro-autonomy and independence groups based in the north of the country. Long considered essential for stabilizing the country, the agreement was primarily engineered by Algeria, but with such announcement, the basics elements of peace in the region have vanished.

In reality, the Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali, commonly known as the Algiers Agreement, already faced headwinds and collapsed the moment the Malian military and the Toureg rebels resumed hostilities last year.

The Malian junta alleges that the Algerian government has behaved badly against Bamako’s interests by maintaining ties with the Touaregs. Last month’s visit to Algiers of Islamic cleric Imam Dicko, who is seen as an opponent to the regime in Bamako, added more fuel to the fire, with the Malian junta accusing Algiers of meddling in domestic affairs. In a statement read on TV by junta spokesman Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga, Mali says its position was made necessary by “the change of posture of certain signatory groups” (i.e the Touaregs), but also due to “the acts of hostility and instrumentalization of the agreement on the part of the Algerian authorities, of which the country is the leader of the mediation.”

Tensions between the junta and the northerners came in the wake of the withdrawal of the United Nations mission (Minusma), prompting the Touaregs to warn that Bamako would break its commitment to the Algiers Agreement and engage in a revenge campaign now that the international community has no presence on the ground.

The end of the Algiers Agreement is another step in the junta’s roadmap to discontinue legacy deals and relationships, breaking most ties with France and other western nations, the UN and now with Algeria.
This event comes at a time when Mali and its neighbors pivoted to Russia, breaking the old alliance with France and its European partners. The end of the agreement also comes in a climate of profound deterioration in relations between Mali and the great Algerian neighbor, with which Mali shares hundreds of kilometers of borders.

Colonel Maiga read another strong statement on Thursday evening, specifically against Algeria. The Government “has a serious concern at an increase in the number of unfriendly acts, incidents of hostility and interference in the internal affairs of Mali by the Algerian authorities”, he said. He denounced “a false perception of the Algerian authorities, which regard Mali as their backyard or a door-clocked State, against a background of contempt and condescension”.

Among various complaints, the junta accuses Algeria of hosting representative offices of certain groups signatory to the 2015 agreement, i.e. the Touaregs, and which have become “terrorist actors” in the eyes of Bamako.
Mali has been in turmoil since 2012 when some Tuaregs joined the Salafist insurrections in the north after decades of demand for autonomy never saw the light of day. The insurgency paved the way for armed groups linked to Al Qaeda that conquered most of the north, triggering a military intervention by France and plunging the Sahel into war.

After a ceasefire in 2014, the predominantly Touareg armed groups signed in 2015 with the government and loyalist groups fighting alongside it the so-called Algiers peace agreement, which provided for more local autonomy and the integration of combatants into a so-called reconstituted army, under the authority of the State.