{"id":80493,"date":"2025-12-18T05:48:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T05:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=80493"},"modified":"2025-12-18T05:48:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T05:48:03","slug":"burkina-faso-releases-11-naf-personnel-after-diplomatic-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/12\/18\/burkina-faso-releases-11-naf-personnel-after-diplomatic-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"Burkina Faso Releases 11 NAF Personnel After Diplomatic Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Patrick Idowu<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Burkina Faso has released 11 Nigerian Air Force (NAF), pilots and crew members, nine days after their detention, following high-level diplomatic engagement between both countries.<\/p>\n<p>The release followed talks in Ouagadougou between a Nigerian delegation led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, and Burkinab\u00e8 authorities, including President Ibrahim Traor\u00e9.<\/p>\n<p>The delegation comprised senior officials from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence, as well as the NAF Headquarters.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking after the meeting, Tuggar said the engagement reinforced the longstanding ties and shared security interests between Nigeria and Burkina Faso.<\/p>\n<p>He confirmed that discussions focused on the Nigerian military aircraft that made an emergency landing in the country.<\/p>\n<p>The minister acknowledged procedural lapses in the authorisation of the aircraft\u2019s entry into Burkinab\u00e8 airspace and expressed Nigeria\u2019s regret, while reaffirming respect for Burkina Faso\u2019s sovereignty and international aviation rules.<\/p>\n<p>Tuggar also dissociated the Federal Government from comments by a Nigerian political party official alleging maltreatment of the detained personnel, offering apologies to the Burkinab\u00e8 government.<\/p>\n<p>He commended President Traor\u00e9 for the spirit of cooperation shown and the treatment accorded to the Nigerian crew, adding that talks also covered broader regional cooperation against terrorism and violent extremism.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-80496\" src=\"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG-20251218-WA0010-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG-20251218-WA0010-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG-20251218-WA0010.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-80497\" src=\"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG-20251218-WA0011-300x163.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG-20251218-WA0011-300x163.jpg 300w, https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG-20251218-WA0011.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Patrick Idowu Burkina Faso has released 11 Nigerian Air Force (NAF), pilots and crew members, nine days after their detention, following high-level diplomatic engagement between both countries. The release followed talks in Ouagadougou between a Nigerian delegation led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, and Burkinab\u00e8 authorities, including President Ibrahim Traor\u00e9. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":80495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182,172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-80493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-and-security","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80498,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80493\/revisions\/80498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}