Der Foreign Policy zufolge gibt es Streit zwischen den USA und Frankreich um den nächsten Kommandeur der UN-Mission in Mali MINUSMA. Die USA sollen einen ihrer Diplomaten an die Spitze stellen wollen, um den Einsatz zurückzufahren, was von Frankreich abgelehnt werde: „Trump administration officials have been quietly lobbying diplomats from France and the United Nations to appoint David Gressly, a veteran American U.N. official who has held a number of senior posts at the world body, as the U.N. special representative for Mali, overseeing a force of more than 11,000 African and European blue helmets. […] But France—which maintains a counterterrorism force of more than 4,500 troops in the semiarid West African Sahel region—has been cool to the prospect of an American leading the mission, preferring that the post be filled by an African candidate from a French-speaking country, according to Western and U.N. officials familiar with the matter.” (jw)
