US regrets Mali's request for UN peacekeepers to leave country

The United States regrets a decision by Mali's interim military authorities to ask a United Nations peacekeeping force to leave leave the country, the State Department said on Monday, calling for an "orderly and responsible" drawdown of the mission.

Mali's Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop made the request during a U.N. Security Council meeting on Friday, citing a "crisis of confidence" between Malian authorities and the decade-long U.N. mission known as MINUSMA.