Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye landed in Bamako on Tuesday morning for a 24 hour working and solidarity trip, marking his first foreign assignment since taking over the rotating chairmanship of the Economic Community of West African States. Faye’s visit to Mali comes at a delicate moment for regional diplomacy.
Faye’s plane touched down at the President Modibo Keita International Airport shortly before 10am local time. Mali’s transition leader, General Assimi Goita, received him on the tarmac with full military honours, according to the Senegalese presidency, which described Faye’s visit to Mali as an expression of solidarity between the two nations.
The welcome ceremony included both national anthems and a review of troops, before the two leaders greeted government officials and dignitaries gathered for the occasion. They then held a brief private exchange inside the airport’s honour lounge ahead of the formal talks.
From the airport, the delegation moved to the Koulouba Palace, seat of the Malian presidency, where the substantive discussions between the two heads of state were scheduled to take place.
Senegal’s presidency described the trip as one of friendship and solidarity, built on historic ties between Dakar and Bamako. Officials on both sides have framed the relationship as a pillar of regional stability.
The Senegalese president travels to Bamako carrying two mandates: as his country’s elected leader and as chairman of ECOWAS. Faye’s visit to Mali is being viewed through both capacities. While he remains Senegal’s president, he also now chairs the regional bloc, a role entrusted to him by fellow heads of state at ECOWAS’ 69th Ordinary Session in Freetown and Lungi, Sierra Leone, in mid-July.
That summit extended the mandate of ECOWAS chief negotiator Lansana Kouyate, a former Guinean prime minister, until December, and confirmed that talks with Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger will proceed only through the Alliance of Sahel States as a single bloc.
Faye’s visit to Mali is expected to touch on the future of relations between ECOWAS and the Sahel alliance, a file Kouyate has managed since March without yet securing a breakthrough. The Guinean diplomat briefed West African foreign ministers on the state of the negotiations at a Freetown meeting on 16 July, days before the summit that made Faye chairman.
Faye’s visit to Mali is his second trip to Bamako as president. He first visited Mali in May 2024, weeks after his own election, when he held introductory talks with Goita and pressed the case for the return of the Sahel states to ECOWAS. His former prime minister, Ousmane Sonko, made a separate trip to the Malian capital later that year.
Tuesday’s visit also comes only days after Faye launched his own political party in Dakar, a development that has drawn attention across the region as he balances domestic politics with his new continental responsibilities.
Neither the Senegalese presidency nor Malian officials have released a detailed agenda for the Koulouba talks, though regional analysts expect security cooperation, trade corridors and the ECOWAS Sahel dossier to feature prominently before Faye’s visit to Mali concludes with his departure from Bamako on Wednesday.
