Niger junta threatens immediate response to any ‘aggression’
By AFP
iger’s newly installed junta has threatened an immediate response to any “aggression or attempted aggression”, as the clock ticks down on a deadline given by its neighbours to reverse last week’s coup.
It also made diplomatic swipes against international condemnation of the putsch, scrapping military pacts with France and pulling its ambassadors from Paris and Washington as well as from Togo and Nigeria.
On Sunday, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) gave the junta a week to reinstate democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum, who was toppled by his guard on July 26, or risk a possible military intervention.
Regional military chiefs are in Nigeria’s capital Abuja to discuss the possibility of a such an intervention, but Nigerian President Bola Tinubu on Thursday told the bloc’s delegations to do “whatever it takes” to reach an “amicable resolution”.
Niger’s junta warned it would meet force with force.
“Any aggression or attempted aggression against the State of Niger will see an immediate and unannounced response from the Niger Defence and Security Forces on one of (the bloc’s) members,” one of the putschists said in a statement read on national television late Thursday.
