Despite Mauritania's pro-French stance during the Cold War, the country maintained relatively close ties with the DPRK at times.

On 4 November 1964, North Korea and Mauritania had issued a Joint Communiqué calling for the withdrawal of all foreign armed forces from Asia, Africa and Latin America, and endorsing the second Afro-Asian conference.

[1][4] During the trip, Kim Il Sung was awarded with the Grand National Order of Merit of Mauritania.

[5] The visit is commemorated in the International Friendship Exhibition, which features a world map on which Mauritania and other countries visited by the country's Eternal President are lit up (in addition to a photo of Kim and President Ould Daddah).

[8] Relations presumably remained strained during the late 1970s and early 1980s, due to North Korean aid to and military backing for the Polisario Front and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic during the Western Sahara War.