ADDIS ABABA - A key African Union organ repeated demands Tuesday that constitutional order be restored in Mauritania, threatening sanctions on the west African country roiled by an August coup.
In a statement sent to AFP, the AU’s Peace and Security Council called for the “unconditional restoration” to power of the country’s former president, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, “no later than October 6, 2008.”
It warned “the perpetrators of the coup and their civilian supporters of the sanctions and isolation they will incur if they do not respond positively to this demand.”
The council had “serious concerns” that “no progress had been made towards rapidly restoring constitutional order,” calling on its members to consider the actions of the coup leaders “illegitimate and illegal.”
The AU suspended Mauritania from the bloc following the August 6 coup led by the former head of Mauritania’s presidential guard, General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.
Abdallahi, the country’s first democratically-elected president, has been under house arrest ever since. His prime minister, Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf, was re-arrested on August 22 and also placed under house arrest.
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