West Africa bloc offers junta-led states six months to rethink exit

ABUJA - Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger will have a six-month grace period after their scheduled exit from West Africa's main political and economic group next month during which the ECOWAS bloc will try to persuade them to stay, the bloc's leaders agreed on Sunday.

The summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was seen as a chance to address the impending withdrawal of the three countries on Jan. 29, a year after they jointly announced they would leave in a reversal of decades of regional integration.

ECOWAS has so far failed in its goal to push them to reconsider, while the three countries in the insurgency-torn central Sahel region have set up their own alliance, sought ever-closer alignment in defence and other areas and mooted abandoning the West African currency union.

While Jan. 29 remains the official withdrawal date, the effective date for their departure has been extended to July 29 - a transition period during which mediators from the bloc will seek "to bring the three member countries back to ECOWAS without prejudice," commission president Oumar Touray said at the end of the summit.

On Saturday, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso reaffirmed their decision to leave as irreversible and jointly declared that their territories would remain visa-free for all ECOWAS citizens post-exit.

This move could be an effort to address warnings that their departure threatens the bloc's freedom of movement and its common market of 400 million people.

Their withdrawal would cap a tumultuous period for the Sahel, where a string of coups since 2020 has swept military authorities to power who have fostered closer ties with Russia at the expense of former colonial ruler France, and other one-time allies from the region and elsewhere.

(Additional reporting by Boureima Balima, Fadimata Kontao, Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha, Alessandra Prentice and Louise Heavens)