20120425
AFP
Mali's interim prime minister Cheick Modibo Diarra on Wednesday formed a government of 24 members, including three representatives of the military in key posts.

The three will hold the defence, interior and civil protection portfolios in the west African country where the military seized power in a coup last month before relinquishing control under a deal brokered by west African bloc ECOWAS, said an official speaking on condition of anonymity.

Diarra was named interim prime minister on April 17, five days after the former parliament speaker Dioncounda Traore was inaugurated as president under the Economic Community of West African States agreement.

Apart from the military -- two colonels and a general closely linked to the junta -- Diarra, an world-renowned astrophyicist, has named apolitical experts to his cabinet, the official said.

The interim government's priorities would be to resolve the crisis in the north of the country, which has been seized by Tuareg and Islamist rebels.

Diarra said on April 20 in his first speech to the nation as prime minister that he was prepared to negotiate with the rebel groups but not under duress.

Diarra said Mali had "suffered a deficit from government and a lack of capacity to anticipate" which had led to the current situation.

A group of low-ranking soldiers ousted the democratically elected government over what they said was its incompetence in dealing with a resurgent Tuareg rebellion.

However the power vacuum in the days after the coup allowed the Tuareg desert nomads and a group of armed Islamists to seize an area larger than France in the north of the country.

The Tuareg have declared an independent state and the Islamists have imposed sharia law in cities including Timbuktu.

Ousted president Amadou Toumani Toure resigned as part of the agreement hammered out between the junta and regional mediators to set up an interim government. He has sought refuge in neighbouring Senegal.