ABUJA: Nigeria on Saturday hosts talks on Boko Haram with regional and Western powers, hoping for closer military cooperation and help with tackling the conflict’s dire humanitarian fall-out.
The leaders of Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger are due to attend, with French President Francois Hollande, US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Britain’s foreign minister Philip Hammond.
Delegations from West African and Central African blocs, plus the European Union have also been invited.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, who has vowed to defeat Boko Haram before the end of his first year in office this month, was scheduled to meet Hollande at the presidential villa in Abuja.
Both countries recently signed an agreement on closer military cooperation, including in intelligence sharing, and France is keen to help implement a regional solution to the Islamist insurgency.
Paris has traditionally concentrated on its former colonies surrounding Nigeria and sees itself as well-placed to help closer ties and longer-term economic development in the troubled region.
