Mauritania–Spain relations

Mauritania–Spain relations refers to foreign relations between the Mauritania and Spain. The two nations have had official diplomatic relations since the 1960s. Spain has an embassy in Nouakchott and a Consulate-General in Nouadhibou and Mauritania has an embassy in Madrid. Spain was the main power that split Western Sahara between Morocco and Mauritania (1/3 of the land was taken by Mauritania, though none remains under Mauritanian control today). Spain is a major trading partner, taking up 4.1% of Mauritanian exports, and providing about 5.1% of imports.[1]

Spanish envoys meeting with the minister of the Interior of Mauritania Ould Beilil in 2011

Mauritania-Spain relations

Mauritania	Spain

Spain officially recognised the Mauritanian independence in November 1960, and the first Spanish ambassador presented his credential letter in 1961.[2] The Mauritanian claim over the Western Sahara territory formulated at the United Nations in 1963 mainly obeyed to the logic of blocking Morocco's own claim over the territory, that, if successful, may also propel the Moroccan irredentist claim over Mauritania itself, with the Mauritanian diplomacy fearing over the possibility of a Spanish-Moroccan understanding.[3] The position of Mauritania in regards of the Sahara hardened in the 1970s, demanding a referendum of self-determination and, by 1972, the country had already reconciled with Morocco.[4] In the 1975 Madrid Accords, Spain ceded the administration over the territory to Morocco and Mauritania.[5]

During the 1978 OAU summit, Mauritania denied the labeling of the Canary Islands as a territory to be decolonised as well as it denied the recognition of the MPAIAC as a "movement of national liberation".[6]

More recently, Spain has privileged the strengthening of bilateral relations on the basis of the importance of the African country, that features a sea border with the Canary Islands, in regards of the managing of irregular immigration.[7]