Mauritanian president receives UN Representative for the Sahara
Mauritania-UN, Politics, 4/20/2000

Mauritanian President Mouaouiya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya received in Nouakchott this Thursday William Eagleton, special representative of the UN secretary general for the Sahara.

An official source said the UN official arrived on Wednesday in Mauritania heading a delegation of MINURSO, UN mission supervising the holding of a referendum in the Sahara.

Eagleton said he held with the Mauritanian head of state "positive talks on the follow-up of the Sahara issue."

Earlier this month, James Baker, the UN secretary general's special envoy, James Baker, who was scheduled to go to Mauritania part of a tour in the region cut short his visit due to health reasons.

Baker has been asked by UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan to resume mediation to pull out the plan from the deadlock in which it is plunged over disputes on registration of potential voters in the rolls of the projected self-determination referendum in the Sahara.

The Algeria-backed Polisario secessionist movement is trying to limit the electorate by 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:
  Moroccan-Mauritanian parliamentary group set up   (2/4/2000)
  Mauritanian president meets UN special representative for Sahara   (11/15/1999)
  Mauritanian president receives U.N. Sahara envoy   (6/10/1999)

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