AP – The European Union’s (EU) top diplomat said on Monday that he has ordered the suspension of combat training for soldiers in Mali until he receives guarantees from the government there that the trainees will not be working with Russian mercenaries.

Rebel Malian troops have launched two military coups in recent years. The junta has postponed elections meant to usher in civilian rule, and the EU is concerned that Mali’s leaders are working with mercenaries from the Wagner Group, which is accused of rights abuses in Africa and the Middle East.

The 27-nation bloc has been training the Mali armed forces since 2013. It had planned to continue to do so despite the severe instability and political upheaval that has wracked the country since 2012.

“Clearly, our training mission cannot be implicated, in any way, in activities that could call into question the EU reputation,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters after chairing a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers.

Borrell said he’s still waiting for guarantees from Mali’s junta, and until then he has ordered the commander in charge of the EU training “to adapt the activities of the mission to the circumstances they are facing”.

“We should maintain training activities that are not directly related to training Malian troops in military combat,” Borrell said, but he added that the mission would not yet be cancelled.

France announced last month that it all its troops would leave Mali by the summer amid tensions with the military junta, but Paris said it would maintain a military presence in neighbouring West African nations.

French President Emmanuel Macron has accused Mali’s authorities of neglecting the fight against extremists.

More than 107 civilians have been killed in recent months in Mali in attacks by the army and extremists groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, Human Rights Watch said in a report last week.

Mali’s soldiers were responsible for at least 71 of the deaths recorded since December 2021, the international rights organisation said. Mali’s army has contested some of the report, while adding that it is investigating a number of the attacks and allegations.

TEHRAN, IRAN (AP) – Iran’s supreme leader on Monday signalled support for Tehran’s nuclear negotiations to secure sanctions relief, a rare reference to the still-halted talks as world powers near a diplomatic turning point.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stressed the importance of Iranian economic self-sufficiency during a lengthy televised speech on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. But he quickly added: “I do not say that you should not seek to lift the sanctions. Those who are trying and working in that field, there is no problem.”

Khamenei, whose pronouncements are considered vital as he has the final say on all state matters in Iran, has remained largely silent on the negotiations to restore Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. His vague but supportive comments signalled that Iranian negotiators retained political space and flexibility.

Former United States (US) President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the nuclear accord in 2018. President Joe Biden promised to revive it. Painstaking talks in Vienna have dragged on for the past year. Iran, its economy strangled, has urged sanctions relief but sought to resist tough Western demands.

Negotiations nearly reached completion earlier this month before Moscow demanded that its trade with Iran be exempted from Western sanctions over Ukraine, throwing the process into disarray. Negotiators have yet to reconvene in the Austrian capital, and it’s unclear exactly what hurdles lie ahead.

“The essence of the issue is to run the country in such a way that sanctions cannot hit the country seriously,” Khamenei said, praising the hard-line government of President Ebrahim Raisi for boosting Iran’s trade with its neighbours and shipping Iranian crude abroad despite sanctions.

“There is another way for us to use oil revenues for the country’s infrastructure.”

BAMAKO, MALI (AP) – Mali’s former Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga died on Monday in the capital, Bamako, a close relative of his family announced.

Maiga, who served as prime minister of Mali from 2017 until 2019, was 67. He remained an influential figure in security policy in Mali and the surrounding Sahel region and had been detained since August 2021 when the country was taken over by a military junta. His requests for medical evacuation had been refused by the military rulers of the West African country.

Maiga’s state of health deteriorated sharply a few days ago and approval for him to be moved from Mali for treatment was being considered but did not happen in time, according to a relative who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press on the situation. Maiga died in a clinic, he said.

The information has been confirmed by several other people close to him. Some heads of state in West Africa have confirmed the account as well.

Niger President Mohamed Bazoum reacted in a tweet, saying that the denial of overseas medical care for Maiga was similar to an assassination.

“I have just learned with dismay of the death of Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga, former Prime Minister of Mali. His death in prison recalls that of President Modibo Keita in 1977. I thought that such assassinations belonged to another era. My condolences to his family and friends,” he said in the tweet.

The president of the political party Alliance for Solidarity in Mali – Convergence of Patriotic Forces (ASMA-CFP), Maiga was a journalist by training. In the 1990s he was appointed the director of intelligence services by President Alpha Oumar Konaré. Critics accused him of being behind the creation of the ethnic Gandakoy militia that is accused of abuses against civilians of the Tuareg ethnic minority in northern Mali.

He went on to occupy several Cabinet posts such as foreign affairs minister in 2011 under President Amadou Toumani Touré and then minister of defence under President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita before serving as Prime Minister from 2017 to 2019.