Mauritania Won’t Intervene in Northern Mali, President Says

Mauritania won’t intervene in neighboring Mali, where Islamist groups have taken control of the country’s north, President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz said.

The northwest African nation will only extradite Abdullah al-Senussi, the head of Libya’s intelligence services under Muammar Qaddafi, with certain conditions, he said, declining to give details.

Aziz was commenting on a televised program on his time in office since he won an election in 2009, which was held less than a year after he led a coup against Mauritania’s first democratically elected president.

In the period, the country’s economy grew to 1.22 trillion ouguiya ($4 billion) from 854 billion ouguiya in 2008, he said. Tax revenue in the first six months of this year was 95 billion ouguiya, Aziz said, without giving a comparative figure.

Revenue from mining was 107 billion ouguiya in 2011, up from 44 billion ouguiya in 2008, Aziz said. Mauritania has $65 million in a fund that holds the country’s earnings from oil, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Oudaa Marouf in Nouakchott via Accra at ebowers1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Emily Bowers at ebowers1@bloomberg.net