UN General Assembly
1972

91. This problem is indeed one of the major concerns of my Government since it is a problem which intimately and deeply affects the Mauritanian people. It concerns us by reason of every kind of tie-historical, geographical, human and cultural-which binds us to this part of the Sahara. It also affects us because between our people and the brother people of the Sahara there is more than one reason for common feeling, more than one link of solidarity and common life. It is precisely because of this common past, this community of life and destiny that my Government, back in 1957, made the decolonization of this north-west part of the Sahara one of the fundamental objectives of its policy, but decolonization in all friendship and cooperation with the administering Power. This policy, decided on immediately following the formation of the first Mauritanian Government still under the colonial regime, has always been ours and we have made it known constantly and consistently.