Mali protest leader urges mass anti-government rally

Malian opposition leader Mahmoud Dicko on Wednesday urged people to protest en masse on Friday, despite recent government overtures towards the resurgent political opposition in the war-torn West African state.

Dicko, an influential imam, accused President Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of ignoring tens of thousands of people who had protested and demanded that he resign on June 5.

"He hasn't learned his lesson, he doesn't listen to people," Dicko told local media in his native Bambara. "But this time he will understand".

His statement comes after Keita announced on Tuesday that he would hold talks on establishing a unity government, in a move apparently intended to appease increasingly vocal opposition critics.

The president has been under pressure to solve a spiralling security crisis in Mali, which first broke out in the north in 2012.

The violence has since spread to the centre of the country, inflaming ethnic tensions, as well as to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died in the conflict, while hundreds of thousands more have had to flee their homes.

Failure to stop the bloodshed, as well as a flagging economy and a perception of widespread corruption, has fed support for opposition groups in Mali.

Dicko is an Islamic hardliner and one of the main leaders of the so-called "June 5" movement, a coalition of opposition groups that takes its name from the mass anti-Keita demonstration held earlier this month.