A large majority of the 15-nation UN Security Council called Monday for free and fair elections to go ahead in coup-hit Mali without the participation of its current leaders.
The volatile west African nation has announced a new government with army figures in key roles, in the wake of an internationally condemned coup led by Colonel Assimi Goita last month.
Fighting in the vast semi-arid Sahel on the southern fringe of the Sahara desert began in 2012, when Islamist militants joined a local insurgency in northern Mali, capturing swathes of territory.
Former colonial power France intervened in January 2013 to beat them back, in an operation called Serval.
Serval was succeeded in 2014 by the broader Barkhane mission, which has some 5,100 soldiers deployed across the Sahel.
Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died and more than two million people have been displaced, adding to the woes of an already impoverished region.
France announced last week that it was planning to wind down Barkhane — although De Riviere said it would maintain a “significant military presence” in the region.
Several Security Council members backed a one-year extension of MINUSMA, the UN stabilization mission in Mali whose mandate expires on June 30, without any change to current personnel levels.
China and Vietnam said they were in favour of “maintaining the ceiling” of authorised military and police at around 15,000.
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