Mali’s military rulers ended a 2015 peace deal with Tuareg separatist rebels in the country’s north, government spokesperson Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga said in a televised statement on Thursday.

The government “notes the complete impossibility of the deal,” Maiga said, “and in consequence announces its end, with immediate effect.”

He said it was not possible to continue with the agreement because of other stakeholders not upholding their commitments, as well as “hostile acts” by Algeria, which acted as a primary mediator.

That means the Algiers Accord, which the United Nations brokered, is no longer viable, the spokesperson said.

The separatist rebels — organized under the Coordination of Azawad Movements — in July 2022 accused the military junta of abandoning the peace deal.

The junta’s announcement came after months of hostilities between rebel groups and the military, the latter of which launched back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021.

The 2015 peace deal was considered vital to stabilizing Mali, which had endured jihadist violence since 2012.

But the agreement began to fall apart after years of calm when conflict between separatists and the national military was sparked amid the withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers in December 2023.

Some information for this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.