The State Department said the embassy in Niamey remains open for limited emergency services to U.S. citizens and that it would continuously re-examine the situation as security conditions permit.

While it wasn’t immediately clear why the department changed course, a one-week deadline imposed on Sunday by the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States for the military junta to cede power is approaching. The bloc said it would consider a military intervention to oust the coup plotters and restore democratic rule in the vast Saharan country if that deadline wasn’t met.

On Tuesday, European governments began evacuating their citizens from Niger after last week’s coup in the West African country triggered a tense standoff between Moscow’s allies in the region and countries that have worked more closely with the U.S. and other Western powers.

The evacuations, led by France, Niger’s former colonial ruler, show that European governments expect their citizens to be at higher risk in the country, which has been central to U.S. efforts to combat Islamist militants in the Sahel, the semiarid strip south of the Sahara.