document for the country and the region”.
“I salute the decision of the president and the Malian government to sign it and call on all groups in the north to do so without delay.”
A spokesman for the groups that did sign hailed the agreement as “an essential document for restoring peace and reconciliation”.
“We have undertaken to respect the spirit and the letter of it,” Harouna Toureh said.
“We will do all we can so that the agreement comes to life and allows all the peoples of the region to rediscover one and another and live together, as they did in the past, in brotherhood and solidarity.”
Ethnic divisions run deep in the northern desert, the cradle of a Tuareg separatist movement which has spawned several rebellions since the 1960s.
The 30-page “Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali from the Algiers Process” calls for “reconstruction of the country’s national unity” in a manner that “respects its territorial integrity and takes account of its ethnic and cultural diversity”.
In deference to the concerns of the Malian government about separatism, it does not use the word autonomy in setting out the powers the region will enjoy.
It proposes the creation of powerful elected regional assemblies led by a directly elected president, as well as “greater representation of the northern populations in national institutions”.
From 2018 the government will set up a “mechanism to transfer 30 percent of budget revenues from the state to local authorities... with particular attention to the North”.
Militants are to be integrated into the Malian army to be redeployed in the north of the country, with joint patrols to start within two months of the deal being signed.
An international commission of inquiry is to be tasked with investigating allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of human rights committed in the Mali conflict.
Political scientist Rachid Tlemcani told AFP the accord would be “a great victory of Algerian diplomacy” if it succeeds, but remained “sceptical” that it would resolve the root causes of the conflict.