UN asks Mali government for election timetable

The United Nations called on Mali's ruling junta to announce an election timetable amid anger over its suggestion of staying in power for five years before holding a vote.

"It is absolutely essential that the government of Mali present an acceptable election timetable," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters. He said he hoped to "get in contact quickly" with the junta.

"I am working with the ECOWAS and the African Union to create conditions which can allow the government of Mali to adopt a reasonable and acceptable position to accelerate a transition which has already been underway for a long time," he added, referring to the Economic Community of West African States.

ECOWAS, in a sharp escalation after months of pressure, last week agreed to shutter borders with the impoverished Sahel state and impose a trade embargo.

The move came after Mali's interim government proposed staying in power for up to five years before staging elections, defying international demands that it respect a promise to hold elections on February 27.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, in an interview, called for the European Union to follow up with its own sanctions.

France is winding down an operation in which it has sent thousands of troops to Mali and neighboring Sahel countries to fight jihadists.

Speaking at a conference Thursday, the EU special envoy for the Sahel, Emanuela Del Re, backed sanctions by the bloc but said that the world needed to keep Mali "engaged and not isolated."

"The position of the European Union must be coherent and must show firmness in asking for concrete and acceptable responses by the Malian authorities,” she told an online conference of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.