Envoys in Mauritania for talks
2009-05-14 19:20
Nouakchott - Top African envoys arrived in Mauritania on Thursday for talks with both sides in the country's political crisis sparked by a military takeover last year.
African Union Commission chief Jean Ping, Senegal's president Abdoulaye Wade and Libya's African affairs minister Ali Triki were set to hold talks later on Thursday with members of the military junta and the administration it deposed.
The envoys are expected to meet Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the country's first elected president before he was deposed in the coup on August 6 last year, officials said.
"Sidi will be in Nouakchott and will meet President Wade," a member of the deposed cabinet told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The mediators will also meet former junta leader Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, elected head of the ruling party last week less than three weeks after he resigned to run in presidential polls.
Elections are to be held on June 6.
Opponents of the August coup have said they will boycott the "masquerade" election as its outcome was a foregone conclusion.
Abdel Aziz's Union for the Republic party has 83 seats in the 151-member parliament, giving it a large majority.
