Junta officials: Mauritanian ties with Israel to remain intact
By News Agencies
Unnamed officials close to the junta which took power in a bloodless coup in Mauritania on Wednesday said Friday that Col. Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, the country's new strongman, met the Israeli ambassador in the capital of Nouakchott and assured him diplomatic relations between the two nations would not change.
Mauritania opened full opened full diplomatic relations with Israel six years ago, becoming one of only three Arab League nations to do so.
Top Mauritanian opposition politicians urged coup leaders on Friday to cut ties with Israel, voicing long-standing anger among the country's Arabs at the ousted president's friendly relations with the Jewish state.
Advertisement
Army officers who toppled president Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya in a bloodless coup on Wednesday have not made any public pronouncements on foreign policy in Mauritania.
But opposition leaders want the new rulers to reverse Taya's amicable policy towards Israel, one of a host of popular grievances from corruption to repression of Islamic groups that fuelled discontent with his 21-year rule.
"Mauritanians don't want diplomatic relations with Israel," said Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, president of the Popular Progressive Alliance, one of the biggest opposition parties.
"In fact, we should break them off," he told Reuters.
The coup drew a rapturous welcome from many in Mauritania's capital Nouakchott, but beyond a commitment to rule for a maximum of two years the military officers behind the putsch have given no details of their plans.
"Our party has always wanted to break off diplomatic relations with Israel, and to only normalise relations if there is a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians," said Mohamed Ould Maouloud, president of the Union of Progressive Forces, one of the other main opposition groups.
Taya, initially an ally of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, moved his country closer to Israel and the United States throughout the 1990s, a move many Mauritanians believe was aimed mainly at winning Washington's favour.
Students threw stones and burned tyres in May to protest at the visit of Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom to Mauritania, which established full ties with Israel in 1999. Egypt and Jordan are the other Arab League states with diplomat relations with Israel.
Regional analysts said any gesture to scale back ties with Israel would serve to boost the new leadership's popularity at home, but they would be wary of any action that would further endanger their relationship with the United States.
Washington has demanded that Taya be restored to power, joining the African Union, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former colonial power France in condemning the coup.
"(Taya's) foreign policy was so much dictated by the advantages from good relations with Washington," said Thalia Griffiths, of African Energy, an industry publication. "They will see that was working and want to keep it that way."
Sarah Meyers, senior analyst at Control Risks Group, a London-based business risk consultancy, said she saw no big policy change on Israel.
"That's not to say that they couldn't lower the profile of their relations with Israel, but I don't at this point see them severing ties," she said.
Straddling black and Arab Africa, Mauritania is one of various countries in the Sahel region south of the Sahara where the U.S. trains troops to boost their capacity to tackle militants that Washington fears may try to operate in the area.
Training for Mauritanian troops has finished for this year, but the U.S. military said it was reviewing the scheme.
"Until things stabilise, until we get an invitation from the government, whoever that may be, we are not going to be conducting any more military-to-military training," said Major Holly Silkman, a U.S. European Command spokeswoman.
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
