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.
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Blinken told a news conference in the New Zealand capital Wellington that“whether this constitutes a coup technically or not, I can’t say, that’s for the lawyers to say.
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“however, what it clearly constitutes is an effort to seize power by force and to disrupt the constitution.’’
Blinken, therefore, called for Bazoum’s immediate release.
