UK nor France supported the principle of Libyan unification, with France being keen to retain colonial control of Fezzan. In 1949 the British unilaterally declared that they would leave Cyrenaica and grant it independence under the control of Idris; by doing so they believed that it would remain under their own sphere of influence. Similarly, France established a provisional government in Fezzan in February 1950. In November 1949, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on Libyan independence, stipulating that it must come into being by January 1952. The resolution called for Libya to become a single state led by Idris, who was to be declared king of Libya. He had been reluctant to accept the position. Both the United Kingdom and the United States—who were committed to preventing any growth in Soviet influence in the southern Mediterranean—agreed to this for their own Cold War strategic reasons. They recognised that while they would be able to establish military bases in an independent Libyan state sympathetic to their interests, they would have been unable to do so were Libya to have entered UN-sponsored trusteeship. The Tripolitanians—largely united under Selim Muntasser and the United National Front—agreed to this plan in order to avoid further European colonial rule. The concept of a kingdom would be alien to Libyan society, where the loyalties to the family, tribe, and region—or alternately to the global Muslim community—were far stronger than to any concept of Libyan nationhood. King of Libya: 1951–1969 On 24 December 1951, Idris announced the establishment of the United Kingdom of Libya from the al-Manar Palace in Benghazi. The country had a population of approximately one million, the majority of whom were Arabs, but with Berber, Tebu, Sephardi Jewish, Greek, Turkish, and Italian minorities. The newly established state faced serious problems; in 1951, Libya was one of the world's poorest countries. Much of its infrastructure had been destroyed by war, it had very little trade and high unemployment, and both a 40% infant mortality rate and a 94% illiteracy rate. Only 1% of Libya's land mass was arable, with another 3–4% being used for pastoral farming. Although the three provinces had been united, they shared little common aspiration. The Kingdom was established along federal lines, something that Cyrenaica and Fezzan had insisted upon, fearing that they would otherwise be dominated by Tripolitania, where two-thirds of the Libyan population lived. Conversely, the Tripolitanians had largely