UN-backed talks on Western Sahara to resume tomorrow
09/08/2007

A second round of United Nations-backed talks on Western Sahara will begin on Friday outside of New York, a spokesman for the world body announced today.

As with the first meeting in June, the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, Peter van Walsum, will lead the two-day discussions between the parties – Morocco and the Frente Polisario – and neighbouring countries Algeria and Mauritania.

The meetings are private and will be closed to the press.

The parties met last June for the first round of talks in Manhasset, on New York’s Long Island, and Friday’s talks were also to take place there under a media blackout.

Since the June talks, both the UN and the United States have urged the two sides to settle their differences through negotiations to break the impasse on the sovereignty issue in Western Sahara.

The UN Security Council had called for a popular referendum to resolve the dispute, but it never took place because of deep differences between the sides.

The UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) has been in place since September 1991 to monitor the ceasefire between Polisario Front and Morocco, which is illegally occupying the the territory.

In an April resolution, the Security Council called on the parties to enter into negotiations “without preconditions in good faith” with a vie to reach a solution that provides for the self-determination of the Saharawi people.