They are also evaluating the country’s humanitarian needs after last year’s war.

A joint UN Security Council team led by Chad and France yesterday, February 2, 2014, began a two-day mission to Mali to assess the situation in the country a year after the war against insurgents in the north ended.

Radio France Internationale, RFI, said the team of 15 is particularly looking at the security and humanitarian situation and how to revive peace talks between the government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Tuareg rebels. An agreement was signed last year in Burkina Faso between the two sides, but talks on the status of the north are yet to begin.

The delegation was due to visit the central town of Mopti yesterday and hold talks in Bamako with representatives from armed groups in the north and the government, agency reports said.  While the government insists the talks should hold in the capital, Bamako, the rebels want a neutral venue. Other points of discord are the choice of mediators for the dialogue and President Keita’s demand that rebels must disarm before engaging in peace talks.

The UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali, MINUSMA, took up northern Mali patrolling duties in July 2013, but is operating at half the strength recommended under its UN mandate - just 5,539 soldiers out of the 11,200 authorised. French troops that pushed the Al-Qaeda-linked militants out of the northern towns early last year are keeping up targeted counter-terrorism operations in the region against residual groups of insurgents.