Abdourahamane Tiani took power on July 26, 2023 after overthrowing elected president Mohamed Bazoum.

"Our march towards full and complete sovereignty is inexorable," said Tiani, two days after former colonial power France demanded Bazoum's "immediate and unconditional release" from detention.

"No state, no inter-state organisation will tell us how to behave, nor what programme of strategic or diplomatic partnerships to follow," Tiani added in a nationally televised speech.

France spoke out against Bazoum's detention following a decision to lift his immunity from prosecution.

Tiani was the head of Bazoum's presidential guard before removing him from power.

"Those who fantasise about an imminent return to the saddle of power of the regimes in their pay will be disillusioned," said Tiani, insisting that the West African country was on the path to "breaking the neocolonial order".

Since taking power, the junta has distanced itself from France and moved towards Russia's orbit.

French forces battling an Islamist insurgency in the Sahel were expelled at the end of 2023. The junta has also scrapped a military cooperation deal with the United States, whose troops completed a withdrawal from the capital this month and are due to leave a base in northern Niger by mid-September.

Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between the Nigerien army and jihadists in the north in recent weeks.

Three international NGOs said on Thursday that human rights in Niger have been "in free fall" since the coup.