The US will forge strained but pragmatic relations with the new military government in Niger after recognising as a fait accompli a July coup in the west African nation, said President Joe Biden’s special assistant on Africa.
“We are engaging with the region in ways consistent with our laws so that we can continue to make sure that the region is safe,” Judd Devermont, senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council, told the Financial Times Africa Summit.
Governments in the Sahel countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger as well as Guinea have been toppled in recent years by military juntas. The loss of democratic regimes has limited Washington’s ability to engage in the Sahel, where Islamist groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State have infiltrated swaths of territory and carried out multiple deadly attacks.