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WESTERN SAHARA: Talks Produce… More Talks

Barin Masoud

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 20 2007 (IPS) - Morocco and Western Sahara’s Polisario Front are poised to possibly reach a political compromise on self-rule, following two days of negotiations in the United States, a senior U.N. official said Tuesday.

Old Moroccan tank near Tifariti, Western Sahara. Credit: flickr.com

Old Moroccan tank near Tifariti, Western Sahara. Credit: flickr.com

While the two parties have not agreed to any substantive preconditioned accords, both agreed to meet again during the second week of August at the Greentree Estate in Manhasset, New York, said Peter van Walsum, the personal envoy of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a communiqué following the talks.

The Western Saharan region has been a disputed territory for 32 years and has been on the decolonisation agenda of the United Nations General Assembly since 1965.

The U.N.-sponsored talks are noteworthy because five years have passed since Morocco and the Polisario Front, the main Western Sahara independence movement based in Algeria, engaged in bilateral talks.

Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker led talks as envoy for the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara back in 2000, following a U.N.-brokered ceasefire in the region in 1991.

Factions of the Polisario Front and Morocco fought for nearly two decades before the U.N. stepped in.


“During the two-day talks, they [both parties] meant to break the ice,” an official from the Moroccan Mission to the United Nations told IPS.

“The atmosphere during dinner [on Monday, the first day of talks] was interactive, the atmosphere was cordial, respectful, and the parties chatted,” added the Moroccan official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Spain once colonised Western Sahara but withdrew in 1975. Mauritania and Morocco gained control of the Western Sahara region until Mauritania ceded control in 1979.

Both Algeria and Mauritania were observers to the talks, as suggested by the U.N. secretary-general and recommended by Security Council Resolution 1754, which was implemented on Apr. 30.

Rabat is willing to hand over a degree of autonomy to the Sahrawi people, but subject to Morocco’s sovereignty. The Polisario’s proposal calls for a referendum that would allow the people of Western Sahara to vote on their own future – the same demand they have been making since the 1991 ceasefire.

On the second day of negotiations Tuesday, Morocco presented its proposal “for the element of planned autonomy,” the Moroccan official told IPS.

“The autonomy plan is a win-win solution,” the official said. “We believe it is the only way to end the stalemate.”

The plan is backed by the neighbouring country of Algeria.

“Our feeling is that the negotiations that took place are a success, [the fact that] both parties agreed to meet again for talks in August 2007 is a success,” Jaffari Djffal, minister at the Algerian Mission to the United Nations, told IPS.

When asked about the areas of contention, including the limited autonomy plan proposed by Morocco, Ahmed Boukhari, the Polisario representative to the U.N., told IPS: “The proposal for autonomy has no place.”

Boukhari has previously insisted that talks would be fruitless if the Moroccan government did not consider a referendum on independence.

“As long as a people under foreign occupation will not choose their destiny, the conflict will remain in place,” he told IPS.

However, he conceded that the Polisario accepts the proposal on the condition that two or three other options will be put on the table as well, to allow the people of Western Sahara to be the ultimate decision-makers regarding the plan.

“No tangible results were expected in the first round,” Boukhari added. “The success of this round is that both parties will talk and are open for hope for reaching an agreement in terms of the Security Council resolution.”

In terms of what he anticipates for the August meeting, the Moroccan official said that, “Morocco will go with the goodwill and will continue to maintain efforts for a successful meeting.”

“We hope the talks go to the second, third, and fourth round,” he said.

Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson, Michele Montas, told reporters in New York Wednesday that, “We are at the beginning of a long process, with difficult negotiations taking place.”

While Montas reiterated that it was too early for an assessment of the talks, she added: “I think it is an important achievement.”

If Western Sahara does eventually gain its autonomy, it will be among the last countries in the African region to be decolonised. More than 160,000 Sahrawis are currently living in desert refugee camps in southern parts of the country and Algeria.

The U.N. secretary-general is expected to present a report to the Security Council following the negotiations. The Council is likely to take up the Western Sahara issue in July.

 
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