Algeria will never accept challenging Mali’s territorial integrity, says Ouyahia

Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said that Algeria “will never accept calling into question the territorial integrity of Mali,” as an armed group proclaimed a day earlier the independence of a part of that country bordering Algeria.

“We are for a solution through dialogue. Algeria will never accept a challenge to the territorial integrity of Mali,” the premiere said in an interview published Friday in the French daily newspaper Le Monde.

Dubbing the situation “very worrying,” Ouyahia said it was a “significant source of tension” at the Algerian border.

The prime minister stressed that the tension had several dimensions, as “there is a problem between the northerners, the Tuareg, and the central authority in Mali relating to underdevelopment and a State’s failure to deal with issues concerning its own territory.”

“We are for a solution through dialogue.”