LOME, May 25 (AFP) - The 16-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) meeting in Lome on Tuesday backed down from punishing Niger for the assassination of its late President, Ibrahim Bare Mainassara. After marathon overnight talks, ECOWAS foreign ministers decided to retract an earlier call backed by Sierra Leone, Mali and Benin to deny recognition to the new military junta in Niger, led by strongman Major Daouda Wanke. The foreign ministers also softened their stance on an eventual enquiry into Mainassara's killing, which a draft resolution had called for unequivocally. Mainassara was gunned down on April 9 by members of his presidential guard at an airport in Niamey. Instead, a final communique issued by ECOWAS "stressed the need for an independent committee of enquiry that would look into the death of President Ibrahim Mainassara Bare." The draft had referred to the president's death as an "assassination", a term rejected by the Niamey regime, which refers to the death an "unfortunate accident." "After much protest and convincing arguments by Niger's foreign minister, ECOWAS decided to change its recommendations," an ECOWAS official told AFP. During a heated debate that lasted until 3:00 a.m. Tuesday, Niger's Foreign Minister Aichatou Mindaoudou said an independent probe would be impossible if Niger lost its recognition as a nation state within the ECOWAS grouping. A diplomat here agreed that Niger would face judicial hurdles and lose much-needed foreign aid if it were isolated over the incident. The foreign ministers convened on Monday in the Togolese capital to discuss regional insecurity in troubled Niger, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone. Regarding Guinea-Bissau, where President Joao Bernardo Vieira was ousted by a junta earlier this month, ECOWAS agreed that some 600 soldiers from its military arm ECOMOG would be pulled out of the country. "In view of the new developments on the ground and the difficulties encountered in financing the operations, the meeting agreed that ECOMOG be withdrawn from Guinea-Bissau," the final communique said. ECOWAS also called on the junta to allow safe passage to President Vieira and his family -- who are holed up at the Portuguese embassy in the capital -- "to any country of their choice." On the conflict in Sierra Leone, ECOWAS appealed to government and rebel delegations heading to the negotiating table to "demonstrate flexibility and a spirit of compromise and conciliation." It also urged opposing sides to respect a ceasefire that came into effect Monday, and condemned a weekend attack in Guinea by rebel forces. The controversy over Niger's role within ECOWAS overshadowed peace talks between rebels and the government set to begin on Tuesday. The opening of a meeting of the ECOWAS committee of seven states handling the Sierra Leone dossier -- Sierra Leone itself, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria -- was subsequently delayed while foreign ministers adopted their communique.  