UN Security Council Calls Emergency Session on Mali
January 10, 2013
by VOA News
The 15-member United Nations Security Council has scheduled an emergency session Thursday evening for talks on the crisis in Mali.
A U.N. spokeswoman confirmed the meeting just hours before its scheduled start, but said the exact agenda for the closed-door session was not clear.
The meeting comes just hours after witnesses said Islamist militants seized a town northeast of the capital, Bamako, from government troops.
The militant group Ansar Dine said Islamist fighters took control of Konna at 11 a.m. local time Thursday. Residents of Konna confirmed the takeover to VOA.
The Konna takeover places the militant force within about 25 kilometers of the major government frontline town of Mopti.
A journalist in Mopti said things were "normal" there but that more soldiers were arriving late in the day.
Earlier in the day, Malian defense ministry official Lieutenant-Colonel Diarran Kone denied the loss of Konna. He said he Malian army is "going after the terrorists", but declined to outline the army's plans.
Talks scheduled for Thursday between Mali's government and the armed groups in the north have been postponed in the wake of the fighting.
The United Nations envoy to Mali, Romano Prodi, was due to arrive Thursday in the capital, Bamako. His talks with the government are expected to focus on when outside military intervention can come to Mali.
Last month, the U.N. Security Council approved a plan for West African states to deploy at least 3,000 troops to Mali to help train the army and retake the north.
Al-Qaida-linked groups took control of Mali's north soon after renegade soldiers overthrew the government last March.
Prodi has said he foresees no foreign troops in Mali until September of this year, but the Malian government says it wants the intervention to happen as soon as possible.
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