ALGIERS — The
UN’s Western Sahara envoy,
Staffan de Mistura, met Saturday with representatives of the Polisario
independence movement in Algeria as part of a regional tour, Sahrawi sources
said.
اضافة اعلان
The Algerian-backed
Polisario Front wants an
independent state in the Western Sahara, a vast stretch of mineral-rich desert
which Morocco sees as a sovereign part of its own territory.
De Mistura met at
a Sahrawi refugee camp with Khatri Addouh, the Polisario’s chief negotiator,
and Omar Sidi Mohamed, the group’s permanent representative to the UN.
The camp is located in Tindouf, where the Polisario
Front is based in far southwestern Algeria near the borders with Morocco and
Western Sahara.
Announcing the visit on Friday, a UN spokeswoman
said de Mistura was “looking forward to deepening consultations with all
parties concerned on the prospect of constructively advancing the political
process in Western Sahara”.
The Italian-Swedish diplomat also met a group of
Sahrawi youth and women, according to the Sahrawi news agency SPS.
On Sunday, he is scheduled to hold talks with
Polisario leader , the movement’s UN representative told AFP.
De Mistura was appointed in November and undertook
his first mission in July, travelling to Rabat to meet Moroccan officials
before delaying a planned trip to Western Sahara.
A former Spanish colony, Western Sahara sits on the
western edge of the vast eponymous desert, stretching along the Atlantic coast.
When Spain withdrew in 1975, Morocco sent thousands
of people across the border and claimed it was an integral part of its
territory.
The following year the Polisario Front declared a
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), with support from Algeria and Libya,
and demanded a referendum on self-determination.
Since then 84 UN member states have recognized the
SADR.
But a stalemate ensued, and Morocco built
razor-wire-topped concentric sand walls in the desert that still ring 80
percent of the territory that it controls.
Under a 1991 ceasefire, the UN, which considers the
Western Sahara “a non-self-governing territory”, deployed a peacekeeping
mission.
The international community has long backed a
referendum to be held to decide the territory’s status.
But
Morocco rejects any vote in which independence
is an option, arguing that only granting autonomy is on the table for the sake
of regional security.
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