Niamey, 14 August 2023 (dpa/MIA) — Niger's new rulers want to charge ousted president Mohamed Bazoum with high treason, a spokesman for the junta said on national radio on Sunday evening.

Bazoum was removed from office by a military junta in a coup on July 26.

Bazoum an his other "accomplices" would have to stand trial, the spokesman said.

On Sunday, the junta in Niger had still shown itself open to negotiations with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The group had demanded that the new rulers release the detained president a few days after the coup.

After the military seized power it suspended the constitution and appointed their own transitional government. President Bazoum has been held by the putschists ever since.

Niger, a country with around 26 million inhabitants and one of the poorest populations in the world, was until the coup one of the last democratic partners of the United States and Europe in the Sahel region on the southern edge of the Sahara. The coup has plunged the region into a political crisis.

At a special summit on Thursday in Nigeria, ECOWAS decided to activate a military standby force to restore constitutional order in Niger.