Mauritania's military junta on Sunday freed from house arrest ousted President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, who vowed to fight to return to the office he lost in a bloodless coup in August. The generals who overthrew Abdallahi, the first democratically elected president of the west Saharan Islamic state, had said this month they would release him as part of negotiations to head off threatened European Union sanctions. Former colonial power France, which holds the rotating EU presidency, welcomed the release but reiterated the international community's demand that the ousted president be restored to office. “The solution to the current crisis is a return to constitutional order,” it said in a statement. Mauritania's coup leaders have refused to reinstall Abdallahi, who won multi-party elections last year. The ousted president was freed after he was driven to the dusty coastal capital by security officers from his hometown of Lemden, 200 km to the south. He later returned to Lemden with friends, supporters said. In an interview published on Sunday by the French newspaper Le Monde, Abdallahi said he considered himself “the legitimate, democratically-elected president”. “I'll push my freedom to the limits the coup leaders put on it. I am firmly resolved to fight to make this coup d'etat fail,” he said in the interview, which was conducted shortly before he was freed from house arrest. Abdallahi told Le Monde he would make political contacts at home and abroad and could try to attend the next summit of African Union leaders at the end of January in Addis Ababa. His daughter Amal Mint Cheikh Abdallahi said his release “was not a real freedom”. “I doubt he'll be allowed to leave the country,” she said. The French EU presidency welcomed the release Sunday of ousted Mauritanian president but urged the military junta to restore constitutional order in the Saharan nation. “The Council presidency welcomes the release of the democratically-elected Mauritanian head of state, Sidi Mohamed Ould Sheikh Abdallahi,” the EU presidency said in a statement. The presidency also “reiterates that the solution to the current crisis is through the return of constitutional order.”
