soldiers to fight Boko Haram was a logistical, not a political decision.
The US Embassy
in Abuja announced on Monday that the Nigerian government had halted a
training programme of an army battalion, which would have developed into
a unit to take on the militants.
The
cancellation came after Nigeria's ambassador to Washington last month
criticised the United States for the "scope, nature and content" of its
support for the counter-insurgency.
In particular, he said Washington had failed to provide the weapons required to deliver a "killer punch" to Boko Haram.
But
Nigeria's national security spokesman, Mike Omeri, played down talk of
strained diplomatic ties, saying it did not affect the countries'
existing military cooperation.
"This is just a training component for one battalion of the Nigerian Army," he told AFP.
"We
have had the first and second phase of that training, so it is not as
if the whole bilateral military agreement has been suspended. The
suspension is logistical and not political."
Omeri
was quoted as saying in the Nigerian media on Friday that the cancelled
third phase required military equipment to be withdrawn from current
operations to be used for training.
The US Embassy had said it
regretted the end of the training programme, which had been offered in
the wake of Boko Haram's abduction of 276 schoolgirls in northeast
Nigeria in mid-April.A number of foreign powers sent surveillance and intelligence specialists to Nigeria to assist the military with the search for the 219 teenagers who are still being held.
Nigeria's
military -- west Africa's largest -- has been unable to end the
five-year Islamist insurgency, which has left more than 13,000 dead and
displaced more than one million people.
The
main opposition has alleged that Nigeria's government has been playing
politics with the insurgency, as the worst-hit areas are unlikely to
vote for it in next year's elections.
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