Germany offers to train Malian troops

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle pledged to support efforts to stabilise Mali, where armed Islamists have seized control of the north. He ruled out sending combat troops into the region.

Speaking after a meeting with Romano Prodi, the United Nations special envoy to the region, Westerwelle called the situation in the west African nation "extremely worrying".

"The human rights situation, the security situation, the humanitarian situation, it's all really dismal," he said.

"For us, it's about European and German readiness to support Mali, not about sending in combat troops," added the minister, stressing this help could come in the shape of "training and development".

Western governments are fearful northern Mali could become a sanctuary for radicals after Al-Qaeda's north African branch and other armed Islamist groups seized the area following a March coup.

After a summit meeting on Friday last week, European leaders vowed to back an international military force and train Malian defence forces.

"If northern Mali falls, if terrorist training camps are set up there, if a safe haven can be built for the terrorists of the world, that threatens not only Mali, the region and the north African states, but also Europe," said Westerwelle.

West African regional bloc ECOWAS has assembled a force of some 3,000 troops to try to retake Mali's desert north, an area roughly the size of France.

On October 13, the UN Security Council gave ECOWAS 45 days to come up with a detailed plan on how it intended to recapture the vast, sparsely populated terrain.

"We are talking about a mission that would be operated by the African states and for which they would be responsible, on the basis of a decision by the United Nations Security Council," Westerwelle said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday judged the Malian forces "too weak to act" and said they needed help from outside.

Europe "could not accept that international terrorism has a safe refuge in the north of the country," Merkel insisted.

For his part, former European Commission president Prodi said that any Western action would not be a "direct intervention" and warned that "the situation in the north is still the most difficult."

Source: AFP via I-Net Bridge