I'm John Bats to with Bill Rajo and Caleb Weiss of the Long War Journal from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy.

Gentlemen Nijer, a state that was closely associated with the

U.S. and France and enforcing order in West Africa in the Francophrique, it's called,

all the former French colonies. in the

Africa Freak it's called all the French former French colonies that had been

quite independent for many years and Niger was such that it had a French foreign Legion base.

Also, the US is still there, I believe, running a drone base near the capital Naeami.

But now we have this from the EU.

European Union countries on Monday that is within the last days

hours really adopted a framework to impose sanctions on members of a junta that seized power in

Niger in July. The new framework will allow the EU to sanction individuals and

entities responsible for actions that threaten the peace, stability and

security of Niger reads the Reuters copy,

undermines the constitutional order, or constitutes serious violations to human rights or

international humanitarian law, this according to the EU Council.

At the same time, there's a report that the US is reaching out in trying to establish a dialogue.

Their report is blunt. This is in the aftermath of the recent coup, the United States and France have adopted sharply

contrasting stances.

The U.S. aligning with its escalating diplomatic engagement with Africa, intends to engage with

the new military regime.

Gentlemen, I come to you on this because it's not easy to solve these competing headlines, but as I recall when we last talked about the

advance of the jihadists.

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