BAMAKO (Reuters) - Separatists in Mali told U.N. peacekeepers on Wednesday to remove a security zone set up around northern towns to forestall further violence with pro-government militias that has undermined a peace accord.
The demand will likely raise tension between the separatist Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) and the Platform pro-government militias and make it harder for the U.N. mission (MINUSMA) to restore a fragile peace.
The peacekeepers deployed the zone extending 20 km (12 miles) around the town of Kidal to protect civilians and prevent a spread of three days of violence for which both the CMA and the Platform blame each other. Kidal is a CMA stronghold.
"The CMA requests that MINUSMA lifts the security zone as soon as possible...and let the different parties settle their differences," a statement said.
There was no immediate comment from the Platform.
The parties signed a U.N.-sponsored peace accord in June that aimed to pacify the north and allow the Malian army to focus on tackling Islamist militants in the West African state.
That accord was breached with clashes that began on Saturday. On Monday, Platform fighters seized the town of Anefis, raising the prospect they could advance on Kidal.
Mali is seeking to break a decades-long cycle of Tuareg uprisings, the most recent of which allowed Islamist groups, some linked to al Qaeda, to seize the desert north in 2012.
A French-led intervention a year later scattered the Islamists but failed to eradicate them, and Islamist violence is once more on the rise, spreading further south.