US Secretary of State Antony Blinken poses for a photograph with members of the Niger Defence and Security Forces before departing Niger at the Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, Niger, on March 17, 2023. BOUREIMA HAMA/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
WELLINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday called for the immediate release of Niger President Mohamed Bazoum.
Bazoum has been removed from power, according to a group of soldiers who appeared on the West African nation’s national television late on Wednesday, hours after the president was held in the presidential palace.
“Whether this constitutes a coup technically or not, I can’t say, that’s for the lawyers to say, but what it clearly constitutes is an effort to seize power by force and to disrupt the constitution,” Blinken told a news conference in the New Zealand capital Wellington.