Algeria joins UN Mali crisis meeting

Algeria is set to join the UN meeting next Wednesday dedicated to discussing the security crisis in north Mali and the African Sahel region in New York. The Algerian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Ammar Belani said in a statement that Algeria will be represented by Abdelkader Msahel, the Minister of the Magharebi and African affairs. The conference will be held on the sidelines of the 67th annual meeting of the UN General Assembly and chaired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. "The meeting is aimed at finding a harmony between the suggested strategies of all the international fronts in dealing with the main issues linked to the crisis in the Sahel region particularly regarding security, humanitarian and development issues," Belani said in his statement. In a separate context, Mali's Defence Minister, Yomosa Camara, said his country is not against deploying western African military forces in north Mali in order to maintain security in the region, yet he said these forces must be pushed "gently" to avoid an angry reaction from the local residents. "We must agree first on a way to deploy these forces without causing any tension among the local residents who are very sensitive towards any foreign military presence in their region," Camara said to reporters after attending a meeting for western African countries in Ivory Coast's capital, Abidjan.