West Africa’s regional bloc ECOWAS has approved an exit timeline for three coup-hit nations.

West Africa’s divided regional bloc has asked Senegal’s President Basirou Diomaye Faye to have a dialogue with the three military junta-led member states to try to reunite the region whose stability has been under threat following their decision to leave the group in January.

Defense chiefs of West Africa on Thursday proposed an ambitious plan to deploy a 5,000-strong “standby force” to fight the region’s worsening security crises, a measure that analysts say might not work due to challenges of funding and division within the regional bloc.