Burkina Faso’s Minister of Defense, General Kassoum Coulibaly, and his Ivorian counterpart, Téné Birahima Ouattara, met yesterday (Friday). They discussed military cooperation. At the end of the meeting, both delegations expressed optimism that relations between their two countries would improve.

The issue of joint patrols along the border, suspended for several months, may well have been addressed. As has the issue of border crossings, which led to the arrest last September of two Ivorian gendarmes belonging to the Bouna squadron (after having strayed onto a clandestine gold-panning site on the Burkinabe side), and then, at the end of March, of a Burkinabe soldier and a civilian auxiliary soldier by Côte d’Ivoire.

” When this kind of event occurs, we find the necessary resources among ourselves to settle them “, said Amadou Coulibaly, Ivorian government spokesman, on Wednesday, suggesting a favorable outcome to these cases.