Baker meets Chirac in Paris
Morocco, Politics, 4/13/2000

The personal envoy of the U.N. secretary-general for the Sahara, James Baker, conferred in Paris on Wednesday with French President Jacques Chirac on new developments in the U.N. settlement plan for the Sahara.

The two men talked for one hour at a private meeting, sources from the Elysee said without disclosing the content of the talks.

Before Paris, Baker stopped over Tuesday in Madrid after a four-day tour to Algeria, Tindouf camps (southwestern Algeria, stronghold of the Polisario), and Morocco. He was supposed to go to Mauritania after Morocco, but he was compelled to skip Nouakchott for health reasons, his doctors said.

The U.N. envoy told the press in Madrid, after a meeting with Foreign Minister Abel Matutes, that there were many problems to solve to be able to implement the UN settlement plan.

The plan's implementation is paralyzed because of several difficulties similar to the situation in 1997 and 1998. The search for a solution to the Sahara issue within a regional frame "would contribute to the strengthening of the Maghreb unity," he said.

Annan's envoy stated that appeals by people claiming the right to vote in the referendum are not the only problem stalling the UN settlement plan's implementation.

The former U.S. secretary of state visited Morocco Sunday and Monday. In Rabat, he held a work session with King Mohammed VI and conferred with Premier Abderrahmane Youssoufi.

Baker toured the region in a bid to pull out the U.N. settlement plan from the deadlock in which it is plunged by disputes over the voter rolls of the projected self-determination referendum in the Sahara.

The Algeria-backed Polisario secessionist movement is trying to limit the electorate insisting that only persons who were included in a population census conducted by the Spanish colonial authorities in 1974 should be entitled to vote, while Morocco says all persons of Sahrawi origin, an essentially nomadic population, should be allowed to vote.

Previous Stories:
  Baker meets President Chirac after visits to Algeria and Morocco   (4/12/2000)
  Many problems to solve before UN plan implementation, says Baker   (4/12/2000)
  Baker cuts short North African tour   (4/11/2000)

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