Magharebia

New Mauritanian president Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz affirmed in a radio interview his desire to expand "good relations" with Algeria into commercial exchanges between the two "brotherly" nations, Algerian daily Liberte reported on Thursday (July 23rd). Speaking on Algeria's Chaine 3, he also expressed his willingness to further open the borders to "bring the two peoples together". On the issue of al-Qaeda activity in the Mauritanian Sahara region, Abdelaziz noted that poverty and under-development support the growth of terrorism. He said he wants all countries in the region to co-operate on eradicating this "cross-border scourge".