REUTERS/Francis Kokoroko Acquire Licensing RightsABUJA/NIAMEY, Aug 19 (Reuters) - A delegation from West Africa's main regional bloc ECOWAS met Niger's ousted president Mohamed Bazoum and held talks with junta leader General Abdourahmane Tiani in the capital Niamey on Saturday, a Nigerian presidential spokesperson said. The group that flew in was led by Nigeria's former military leader Abdulsalami Abubakar and included ECOWAS commission president Omar Touray, the source said. "After meeting .... (junta leader) General Abdoulrahmane Tchiani, the ECOWAS delegation in Niger have also visited President Mohamed Bazoum this evening," he wrote on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter. There was no immediate comment from the junta, which has held president Mohamed Bazoum since seizing power despite international calls for his release. ECOWAS has taken a harder stance on the Niger coup, the wider region's seventh in three years, than it did on previous ones.

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Persons: Francis Kokoroko, Niger's, Mohamed Bazoum, General Abdourahmane Tiani, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Omar Touray, Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, General Abdoulrahmane Tchiani, Tiani, Alessandra Prentice, Toby Chopra, Jane Merriman Organizations: Chiefs, Defense, REUTERS, Rights, ECOWAS, West, Twitter, Islamic, U.S . State Department, Thomson Locations: Republic of Niger, Accra, Ghana, Rights ABUJA, NIAMEY, West Africa's, Niamey, Niger, al Qaeda, Islamic State