Mauritania's President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz on Tuesday retained career diplomat Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf as prime minister and asked him to form a new government, officials said. Ould Mohamed Laghdaf tendered his resignation shortly after Ould Abdel Aziz, former head of a military junta, was sworn in as duly elected president of the west African largely desert nation on August 5. A year ago, when General Aziz overthrew elected president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, he chose Ould Mohamed Laghdaf, who was then ambassador to Brussels, to head a transitional government. The diplomat remained head of a government of national unity set up last June among political factions for and against the military coup, after talks aimed at settling the political crisis and restoring democracy in the nation on the western edge of the Sahara. 