ABUJA: Nigeria is in talks with the United States following President Donald Trump’s threats of military intervention over the killing of Christians by jihadists in the country, Nigeria’s foreign minister told AFP on Monday.
Trump said late last month he was naming Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) — a State Department designation for religious freedom violations — over the killing of Christians by “radical Islamists” before he issued a threat to strike.
“What we are discussing is how we can collaborate to tackle security challenges that are in the interest of the entire planet,” Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar said in an interview in the capital Abuja.
Trump at the start of November said he had asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack in Africa’s most populous nation because radical Islamists are “killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers.”
Asked whether he thought Washington would send the military to strike, Tuggar said: “No, I do not think so.”
