Morocco meets Mauritanian opposition

Interesting! Taieb Fassi Fihri, the Moroccan foreign minister, has met publicly with the anti-coup resistance in Mauritania, the National Front for the Defense of Democracy (FNDD). According to MAP:

While reaffirming the importance that the Kingdom of Morocco accords to the security and calm of Sisterly Mauritania, and its contribution to the realization of an integrated and stable Maghreb, the minister recalled the vigorous desire of Morocco for a return to the normal constitutional order, given the appropriate conditions and delays.

This little word "appropriate" could of course intepreted in a thousand different ways, but that a meeting is held so publicly and that this sort of ambiguously junta-critical phrasing is put out by Morocco seems to indicate a climbdown from the position of most high-profile supporter of the August 6 coup. At the very least, they must have been aware that it would be interpreted that way.

The FNDD, as a reminder, is made up of a number of Mauritanian parties and political personalities, including: the deposed Prime Minister Yehia ould Ahmed el-Wagef (now in house arrest); the president's party, PNDD/Adil; the Haratine party APP of Messoud ould Boulkheïr; the leftist UFP party of Mohamed ould Maouloud; and the Muslim Brotherhood, in the shape of Jemil ould Mansour's Tawassoul Party. They demand the reinstatement of the former president, Sidi ould el-Cheikh Abdellahi, and a return to civilian rule.

Most of the rest of the world, including the USA, the EU, France, the AU, the UN, various Gulf nations, and neighboring Algeria, have more or less openly backed the FNDD's demands and refused to recognize or deal with the government or junta of Gen. Mohamed ould Abdelaziz. The states that have, on the other hand, most visibly come out in support of him have been Morocco, and more recently -- still slightly ambiguously -- Senegal, and, even more erratically, Libya, plus a couple of minor states in West Africa (eg. Burkina Faso).