|
Ousted Mauritanian president vows to be back BEIJING, Aug. 9 -- Ousted Mauritanian president Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya Monday vowed to return home soon and called on the security forces to support him. "As president, I order officers and soldiers of the armed forces and security forces to put an end to this criminal act so that the situation returns to normal," Taya said in a statement broadcast by Arabic television Al-Arabiya. "I will return home, God willing, so that we can together continue the path for a better tomorrow," said the ousted leader in Niger. He added that he would call an emergency session of parliament when he returned to solve the crisis. The tone was apparently different from Taya's first public speech after the coup on Friday, in which he said that he "was greatly surprised by the coup." Taya, who has ruled the oil-rich northwest African country for over 20 years, was toppled last week in a coup led by national police chief Ely Ould Mohamed Vall when Taya was in Saudi Arabia attending the funeral of King Fahd. Vall was Taya's close ally in a 1984 coup, which took Taya to power.
|
