The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) says it is committed to strengthening relations with breakaway Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, notwithstanding the trust deficit between the two sides.
ECOWAS President, Dr Omar Touray, stated this while presenting the 2025 Annual Community Report on the State of the Community to the ECOWAS Parliament during its 2025 Second Ordinary Session in Abuja.
The annual report offers the ECOWAS President the opportunity to comprehensively review and brief the parliamentarians on developments across key sectors within the region.
The report usually covers a wide range of political, economic, security, agricultural, humanitarian support, economic integration, public health issues, among others, across the region in the year ending.
Touray said that the withdrawal of the Sahel States from ECOWAS had strained cooperation on peace and security between the two sides and solicited intensified efforts to build trust between them.
He said: “While ECOWAS continues to collaborate with the three countries on trade, free movement of persons, and other existing protocols, security cooperation has remained a major challenge.
“Our brothers and sisters from the three countries are prepared to work with us in all areas, but in the area of peace and security, trust remains the biggest challenge.”
According to him, ECOWAS has been engaging global partners, including the U.S. and Russia, diplomatically, to bridge the trust deficit, which deepened divisions.
He stated that the diplomatic efforts had paid off as relations between ECOWAS and the Alliance of the Sahel States (AES) had improved in the most recent months.
Touray added, “In the past eight months, you no longer hear hostile statements being exchanged.”
The commission’s president said that both parties had deliberately agreed to maintain the status quo, until a new agreement is concluded.
He said that the past eight months were devoid of hostile statements being exchanged between them.
Touray said the ECOWAS Council of Ministers had, however, directed that all nationals of the countries working in ECOWAS institutions should vacate their posts.
