The government and Tuareg rebels will on July 16, 2014, begin discussing how to restore peace to the restive north.

Peace talks to end the crisis in northern Mali resume in the Algerian capital, Algiers, today,

July 16, 2014. Algeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Ramtane Lamamra, made the announcement recently after meeting with President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, the mediator for the talks.

“Our role is to help Malians talk to each other directly, plan for ways to tackle the situation and look ahead together as one nation,” Lamamra pointed out during his visit to Burkina Faso. He said progress had been made in the mediation, particularly the Ouagadougou Agreement signed on June 18, 2013. According to him, Algeria and Burkina Faso are on the same wave length with regards to the principles and approach for a solution.

The meeting is the first since clashes in the northern Tuareg stronghold town of Kidal last May during which some 50 Malian soldiers were killed. The talks come on the heels of the announcement by France earlier this week that it was ending its operations in northern Mali to replace them with a Sahel-wide anti-terrorism campaign. When the crisis broke out in early 2012 in Mali, leaders of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, appointed President Blaise Compaore as regional mediator to help end the conflict.

The 2012 uprising led to a military coup in the capital and the occupation of the northern half of the country by Islamist militants who had allied with the rebels. The militants were later driven out by a French-led intervention under ‘Operation Serval.’ The rebels are demanding greater autonomy for northern Mali that they term Azawad. The main rebel groups include the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, MNLA, the Arab Movement of Azawad, MMA and the High Council for the Unity of Azawad, HCUA.