Nouakchott - Mauritanians on Wednesday welcomed an agreement by the country's main political factions to postpone the elections scheduled for Saturday to July
18.

A large crowd welcomed the negotiators at Nouakchott airport as they arrived in the early morning hours from the Senegalese capital Dakar, where they had agreed to form a transitional government.

The African Union, European Union, Arab League and United Nations had been mediating in the negotiations aimed at persuading the opposition to participate in the elections.

Major opposition parties had announced a boycott of the vote, describing it as a charade to sweep former junta leader Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz to power.

Abdel Aziz ousted Sidi Mohammed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, who was regarded as the north-west African country's first democratically elected president, in a bloodless coup in August 2008.

Abdel Aziz then stepped down as junta leader to contest the elections, in which he would only have faced three challengers who were deemed to have no chances against him.

The Abdel Aziz camp and the main opposition formations FNDD and RFD were due to formally sign the agreement to postpone the elections in Nouakchott on Wednesday.(dpa)