Ministry for Foreign Affairs – November 8, 2011

The meeting convened in Washington between the United States and the countries of the zone (Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Niger) is “a qualitative step” in the implementation of a partnership, as envisioned at the Algiers counterterrorism conference, said Minister Delegate for Maghreb and African Affairs Abdelkader Messahel in a statement to APS.

Mr. Messahel started on November 7 a two-day visit in Washington, where he is taking part in multilateral talks involving the countries of the Sahel zone and high-ranking U.S. officials and convened to follow up on the Algiers Conference on Partnership, Security and Development, held last September.

Mr. Messahel is leading a delegation including high officials representing the ministries of Justice, National Defense, Interior and local Governments, and Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Messahel and the ministers for Foreign Affairs of Mali, Niger, and Mauritania met yesterday with U.S. State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism Daniel Benjamin, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey D. Feltman, and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, as well as with officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

The representatives of the countries of the Sahel zone also held working sessions with Deputy Assistant Secretary for Africa in the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vicky Huddleston and the representatives of, respectively, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, AFRICOM, and the Department of Defense’s Office for Counterterrorism, and U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Schwartz.

The agenda of the meetings included security situation in the Sahel, training, capacity-building, equipment supply, exchange of information, development, and poverty control.

Speaking about the meetings, Mr. Messahel said the sessions were “lively, rich, interactive and focused on meeting the needs of the countries of the area in terms of security and development.”

In fact, said Mr. Messahel, the conference held in Algiers last September “has produced concrete results, as is shown by this meeting with the United States,” adding that the countries of the Sahel zone are now “viewed by their partners as a grouping of countries able to act as sole interlocutor.”

The minister added that “the Washington meeting is a first because countries that have reached an advanced stage of integration and are organized within a regional structure are now leading, simultaneously and jointly, discussions with their partners on shared concerns.”

The other positive point noted by Mr. Messahel is that perception of the threat, which connects terrorism to transnational organized crime and poverty, is now “definitively understood and shared by the countries of the region and their partners.”

Consequently, said the minister, the Washington meeting is “a new qualitative step in the implementation of the partnership, as envisioned in Algiers last September, since, having established the shared guiding principles for a single political approach, we are now holding discussions on specific cooperation areas that are more focused and more concrete.”

Moreover, he said, “the American partner has reiterated its respect of the principle of appropriation of the fundamental issues of security and development and has expressed its availability and willingness to support the collective efforts of the countries of the region.”
Mr. Messahel also called the meeting “a stage in the construction process of a partnership that is part of UN-led global strategies for combating terrorism, transnational organized crime and poverty.”

The agenda of the second day of the high-level multilateral discussions involving the U.S. government and the countries of the Sahel zone include a meeting between the Algerian delegation and the ministers for Foreign Affairs of Mali, Niger and Mauritania, on the one hand, and President Obama’s advisor for counterterrorism and national security John Brennan, on the other.

They will also hold a working session at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), one of the best-known think tanks in the area of U.S. foreign policy.