MALI'S NEW AMBASSADOR TO MAURITANIA IN HOLDING

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAMAKO 000907 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/24/2018 TAGS: PREL KDEM ML SUBJECT: MALI'S NEW AMBASSADOR TO MAURITANIA IN HOLDING PATTERN REF: NOUAKCHOTT 00688 Classified By: Political Officer Aaron Sampson, Embassy Bamako, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 1.(C) During a November 24 visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to deliver UNGA demarches, the Embassy spoke briefly with Souleymane Kone, Mali's Ambassador to Mauritania in waiting. Kone has previously served as a technical advisor within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His main job, however, was and presumably still is Political and Elections Director for President Amadou Toumani Toure's Citizens' Movement. The Citizens' Movement is a quasi-political party/fan club dedicated to supporting President Toure. During the 2002 and 2007 presidential elections, President Toure relied on support from the Citizens Movement to project himself as a political independent untarnished by party affiliation. During the 2007 presidential election Kone was the Embassy's main contact within the Citizens' Movement. 2.(C) These days Kone is parked in a nearly empty office off a narrow hallway at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, waiting for forces much larger than the Citizens' Movement to give him a ticket to Nouakchott. Kone said Mali informed the Mauritanian government of his appointment as Ambassador just three days before the August 6 coup. Mali's post-coup position, according to Kone, is simple: direct support for the African Union's line. Kone said the main issue was the Mauritanian military junta's inability to formulate a "horizon" for a democratic transition - a timeline that would in turn provide Kone with a horizon for assuming his Ambassadorial functions. Kone said his eventual departure for Nouakchott hinged on three benchmarks: a timeline for potential constitutional revisions, clarification regarding whether members of the military junta can participate in new elections, and information on President Abdallahi's involvement in a potential solution. "The African Union," said Kone, "needs to force Mauritania to respond to these questions. Otherwise sanctions will be imposed and we won't recognize the regime in place." 3.(C) Kone said Mali was in no rush to dispatch him to Nouakchott and was content to adhere to what Kone described as the "status quo." He observed that if he were to travel to Mauritania, the junta would use his arrival as an act of recognition - something Kone said Mali would prefer to avoid. Kone expressed hope that a solution could be found by the end of 2008. 4.(C) Regarding problems along the Mali-Mauritania frontier, Kone said Mali's border with Mauritania remained open but that Mauritania had halted road transportation services to Mali. Kone's description of the border dispute largely echoed that offered by his eventual DCM, Claude Tounakra, in Nouakchott (reftel). In short, Kone said Mauritanian citizens with no intention of crossing into Mali were purchasing tickets on Malian bus services because Malian buses are in better shape than those operated internally by Mauritanians. The problem is that Malian buses are only authorized to transport international passengers, and many Mauritanian clients are reportedly paying a little extra to ride in comfort in the Malian buses, then getting off before reaching the Malian border. Kone described the transportation dispute as a "faux problem" and said Mauritania's military junta was using it as a pretext to express displeasure with Mali's adherence to the African Union's post-coup position. 5.(C) Kone said he had spoken with the junta's Minister of Communication, who was recently in Mali unofficially. Kone said the Minister claimed his wife was Malian and that he was visiting her family. During their brief meeting, the Minister reportedly expressed his disappointment with Mali's decision to align itself with the international community and told Kone that Mali could not remain neutral because the two nations shared too many security and cross-border concerns. MILOVANOVIC