Mauritanian Foreign Minister Naha Mint Mouknass said late Saturday that his country cut "completely" diplomatic ties with Israel.

Naha made the statement at a meeting of the parliament majority in response to National Assembly (parliament) President Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, who accused the Mauritanian government on Thursday of "betraying the people" by playing with the term of "freeze" on its relations with Israel.

Mauritanian leader Mohamed Ould Abdela Aziz declared a freeze on ties with Israel at a mini-summit of Arab countries held in January 2009 in Qatar, in protest against the Jewish state's military operation in the Gaza Strip.

Mauritania also ordered the Israeli ambassador to the Arab African country to leave in March 2009 and its ambassador in Tel Aviv to come back.

Mauritania, one of the three Arab countries to have diplomatic relations with Israel, had maintained ties with the Jewish state for more than a decade, before Nouakchott decided on the freeze.

The opposition parties have been critical of the government, seeing the decision to "freeze" the relations with Israel as a form of silence over the controversial ties between the two countries.