18 March 2009

Niamey - Deposed Mauritanian president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi must "accept a fait accompli," Libyan leader and AU head Moamer Khadafi said, following a mediation trip to Mauritania.

"The military will not permit him from regaining his post... so he must accept a fait accompli," Khadafi said at a banquet at the presidential palace in Niamey late on Saturday.

Recounting a conversation he held with Mauritania's ex-leader and first democratically elected president, Khadafi added: "He told me, 'I was the elected president. If they want to restore power to me, okay. If not, I will stay in my village.'

"He well knows that (restoring power) is impossible, so he will remain in his village," Khadafi added.

Ould Cheikh Abdallahi has sharply criticised Khadafi's mediation as biased, and a "de facto recognition of the putsch" last August.

The Libyan leader sparked controversy when he wrapped up a mediation visit to Mauritania Thursday by saying he supported lifting AU sanctions against the ruling junta.

"The president cannot but express his deep disappointment and his profound bitterness," Ould Cheikh Abdallahi said in a statement on Saturday.

The international community roundly condemned the August 6 coup and the AU slapped sanctions on junta members, including a travel ban and a freeze of bank assets.

The military rulers have announced they will hold new presidential elections on June 6.

Gaddafi's Own Reshuffle Sees Spies Chief New Foreign Minister

Meanwhile, Libya's main ruling assembly on Wednesday appointed intelligence chief Moussa Koussa, the country's most influential official after leader Muammar Gaddafi, as foreign minister in a reshuffle.

Koussa was an important figure in combating dissidents based abroad and in a confrontation with the West that lasted almost three decades. He replaces Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam, according to an official statement.

The General People Congress (GPC), the equivalent of a parliament, kept Ali Al-Mahmoudi as prime minister. Other positions were scrapped or merged to trim bureaucracy.

Abdulhafid Zlitni, who held the economic planning portfolio, becomes planning and finance minister. He also is chairman of the Libyan Investment Authority, which manages the Opec member's sovereign wealth fund of $69-billion.

Mohammed Ali al-Houeij, finance minister in the government line-up, was named minister of industries, economy and trade. Koussa has spent his career in the shadows in foreign intelligence for most of Gaddafi's 40-year-old rule. He warded off several attempts by dissidents, most of them based abroad, to try to topple or assassinate Gaddafi.

He played a key role in ending Libya's ostracism by working on British and US intelligence services to convince London and Washington that Tripoli wanted to normalise relations.

His efforts encouraged Gaddafi to pledge to scrap Libya's mass destruction weapons programmes in 2003, a decision which resulted in improved links with Western countries.