Niger’s ruling military junta announced March 17 that it was terminating with immediate effect the military cooperation agreement signed in 2012 by the government of President Mohamed Bazoum, who was later deposed by a coup on July 26, 2023.
The announcement was made by the junta’s spokesman, Colonel Amadou Abdramane, on behalf of the National Council for the Safeguarding of the People (CNSP), the name of the government formation that the military established after the coup, and caused some astonishment, given the junta’s apparent willingness to continue military cooperation with some foreign countries even in the wake of the severed relationship with France.
The tone of the communiqué announcing the termination of cooperation with the United States, however, was particularly harsh, describing as “illegal” the continued presence of U.S. Department of Defense military and civilian personnel in the country, and in violation of the country’s “constitutional and democratic norms.”
The government of Niamey justified the decision to terminate military cooperation with Washington by claiming that it had in fact been unilaterally imposed by the Americans on the previous government of deposed President Bazoum, on the basis of a simple verbal note signed in 2012 that did not specify the terms and scope of what has since become the U.S. military’s presence in the country.
A pretext, in fact, that on the contrary justifies a decision triggered by a more recent crisis that emerged following a visit last March 12 to the country by a U.S. delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State Affairs, Molly Phee.
The United States had long expressed a willingness to fully resume the process of military cooperation with Niger, under which 648 military personnel and several dozen Defense Department civilian officials had been stationed in the country since February 2013, helping to train local security forces and participating in some cases in counter-insurgency operations against jihadist formations present mainly in the country’s northern and western areas.
Following the coup d’état on July 26 last year, however, Niger’s relations with France had deteriorated rapidly, leading to the exit of the French contingent but also to a hardening of the U.S. position, which later resulted in the suspension of aid, while the military junta government had concurrently signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia to initiate cooperation in the security sector.
The CNSP’s position had greatly irritated both the United States and the Europeans, who had nevertheless pragmatically tried to keep a line of dialogue open with the junta by renewing their interest in maintaining military cooperation, but at the same time calling for the restoration of democracy.
Molly Phee had traveled to Niamey as early as last Dec. 13 to meet with the junta leadership, urging them to revive the bilateral partnership and offering the full resumption of cooperation on the U.S. side, with results that Phee herself had declared as encouraging.
Despite the initial U.S. perception, however, the resumption of cooperation has not produced the desired results, and the consolidation of ties with Russia has resulted in effects that have gradually alarmed the government in Washington. In particular, the United States seems to have developed over the past few months a concrete suspicion of the initiation of cooperation between the Niamey and Tehran governments in the area of uranium supplies, which would allow further progress in the development of Iran’s nuclear program.
It was within this framework, then, that Undersecretary Molly Phee’s most recent mission to Niger, March 12-14, was organized, leading a delegation that also included General Michael Elliot Langley, since August 2022 the head of AFRICOM. Official releases from the U.S. State Department described the mission as a routine visit to revive cooperation and call for the country’s return to democracy, and no particular comments were made during the visit itself.
It was the Niger military junta, in fact, that reported three days after the U.S. delegation’s departure that it had accused the country of entering into a secret agreement with Iran to initiate uranium supplies to support Tehran’s nuclear program, adding that it had received unacceptable threats of retaliation.
With the announcement of the immediate revocation of the cooperation agreement, then, and in spite of the reasons that traced the decision back to the challenge of the 2012 note verbale, the true extent of the contrast between the two countries has emerged. The Niger spokesperson lamented “the intention of the U.S. delegation to deny the sovereign people of Niger the right to choose their partners and forms of partnership capable of truly helping them in the fight against terrorism,” implicitly indicating how the U.S. grievances had thus not been limited to the denunciation of the Iran agreement alone as much as also including the renewed cooperative relationship with Russia, leading to the junta’s sharply hardened positions.
The State Department has commented somewhat discreetly and calmly on the decisions taken by the Niger government, without giving any indication on the ultimatum for the exit of its military personnel from the country, which is about to be complex given its scope and deployment on two different bases. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller posted a brief comment on institutional social media on March 17, claiming to have learned of the decision from the CNSP and adding that these followed what he described as a “frank bilateral discussion on U.S. concerns,” without further comment.
With the presumed imminent exit of the U.S. contingent, the only foreign military mission that will officially remain in the country is the Italian mission (MISIN), 350 military personnel strong and housed at the Niamey airport, where it performs tasks in support of counter-terrorism and trafficking activities and whose mandate includes a larger geographic area, including Mauritania, Nigeria and Benin. A mission that is now likely to assume a profile of increasing complexity, given the progressive deterioration of the military junta’s relations with Western countries and the concomitant presence in Niger of some units of the African Legion, which replaced Wagner.
