A political analyst says a huge power vacuum in the mineral rich Central African Republic is the root cause of many problems, warning that NATO seeks to capitalize mineral riches in the crisis-hit country.

“The country has uranium; they have gold; they have diamonds and they have other strategic minerals that are indispensable to the overall world economic system. And the US of course with their allies in NATO wants to control those resources in alliance with their partners on the African continent,” Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan African News Wire, Detroit, told Press TV on Monday.

He said a decision by the European Union (EU) to dispatch more troops to the Central African Republic would not be a solution to the crisis in the country as there have already been thousand combined forces of African Union member states and France.

The United States is also helping with the airlifting of troops and military equipment inside the country, he added.

“I don’t believe that the deployment of an additional 1,000 European Union troops as well as an additional 400 French troops is going to do anything to solve the internal political crisis inside the Central African Republic,” the political commentator reiterated.

He stressed the importance of resolving the crisis in the country through political approaches and said this can be achieved only when various principals involved in the struggle are able to sit down and resolve their differences.

Azikiwe urged the CAR government under a new leader Catherine Samba-Panza to give “some semblance of direction and authority in order for her to get control of the security forces inside the country.”

The commentator’s remarks came after EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on Friday that the 28-nation bloc plans to send around 1,000 troops to the former French colony. The CAR spiraled into chaos in March 2013, when Christian militias launched coordinated attacks on the mostly Muslim Seleka group, who overthrew former President Francois Bozize and brought Michel Djotodia to power. France invaded the CAR in December 2013, after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution giving the African Union and France the go-ahead to send troops to the country. Paris has deployed 1,600 troops to the country, but the UN-backed intervention force, which includes over 4,000 African Union peacekeepers, is struggling to restore security in the Central African Republic.