Morocco ready for dialogue with Algeria over Sahara issue
Morocco-Algeria, Politics, 2/25/2002

Morocco's permanent delegate to the United Nations Organization in New York, Mohamed Bennouna, said Morocco is ready to open direct dialogue with Algeria, as the major interlocutor in the Sahara issue.

The Moroccan diplomat who was interviewed by Moroccan TV channel "TVM" voiced Morocco's readiness to open direct dialogue with Algeria, within Morocco's sovereignty over the Sahara and stressed that Algerian proposal to partition the territory, contained in the latest report of the UN secretary general, has produced evidence that the Sahara issue is actually a Moroccan-Algerian dispute.

"We have to find a peaceful solution through dialogue between the two neighbor countries under the world body aegis," he said recalling that Morocco has repeatedly expressed readiness to hold dialogue with Algeria, provided that this respects Morocco's territorial integrity.

After he surveyed the four options put forward by Kofi Annan in his report submitted Wednesday to the security council, Bennouna stressed that Algeria's partitioning proposal sends us back to the 70's when under-developed and colonialist mentalities prevailed, thinking that the creation of micro-states will give them hegemony in a region. Asked on the fourth option providing for the end of the UN mission activities in the Sahara, he said neither Morocco nor Algeria will accept this contingency, as the two are concerned about stability in the region. He also hoped that the security council would adopt a resolution requesting James Baker, the UN secretary general's special envoy, to carry on efforts to hold negotiations with the concerned parties on the basis of the framework-agreement, which is the only political solution.

Most of the security council members support the framework agreement but it is not enough, since any resolution or recommendation requires the unanimity of all the 15 member-countries, he went on explaining that it is difficult to reach unanimity. In this case the only mechanism likely to help put forward a political solution remains the launching of negotiations, he insisted before underscoring that nobody is entitled to impose a solution on Morocco, including the security council which is, under paragraph 6 of the UN charter, only empowered to issue recommendations.

Asked on the stances within diplomatic circles in New York to the partition option, he answered that several diplomats expressed astonishment as the attitude adopted by Algeria which they used to back because it was supposed to defend the self-determination principle. After he deplored the inhumane sequestration of Moroccan citizens in the Polisario-Tindouf camps in southwestern Algeria, he concluded Morocco is on its soil, development of the territory is going and when the others will be ready to negotiate, we are also ready.

Annan outlines four options for the Sahara issue: either to implement the (initial) settlement plan, revise the framework agreement which provides for granting the territory autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty, partition the territory or end the UN mission in the territory.

Previous Stories:
  Sahara partitioning proposal inapplicable, former official   (2/22/2002)
  Morocco renews rejection of any project or proposal meant to harm its territorial integrity   (2/21/2002)
  Algeria seeks to create vassal state in Moroccan sahara, diplomat   (2/21/2002)

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