Mali president ‘will talk with rebels’

Mali’s interim president is willing to open dialogue with Tuareg-led rebels and Islamists occupying the north of the West African country, but “armed foreign jihadist groups” among them should leave, a Malian envoy has said.

“We want to resolve the difficulties through dialogue and negotiation,” Tiebile Drame, a mediator for interim Malian president Dioncounda Traore, said in Nouakchott.