UN security council extends mandate of sahara mission till may 31st
Morocco-Algeria, Politics, 3/26/2003

The United Nations Security Council adopted on Tuesday resolution No1469 (2003) providing for the extension till May, 31st 2003, of the mandate of MINURSO.

A press statement by the President of the UN Security Council, Guinean ambassador, Mamady Traore, said that this resolution was adopted in order to give the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary General, James Baker, "sufficient time to evaluate the parties' responses to his proposal."

While the members of the Security Council welcomed the recent release of prisoners detained in Tindouf camps, south-western Algeria, they recalled that "all prisoners of war still in detention should be released without further delay in accordance with paragraph 5 of resolution 1429 (2002) and international humanitarian law," says the same source.

The members of the Security Council, the press statement went on, "requested the two parties to continue to cooperate with the efforts of the International Committee of the Red Cross to solve the problem of the fate of all persons who have disappeared since the beginning of the conflict."

The members of the Security Council further expressed their concern at the humanitarian situation of persons and populations affected by the ongoing crisis, adds the same source.

The Council also requested the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, to provide a report on the situation by May 19th, 2003, as proposed by the Secretary General in his letter to the President of the Security Council, on March 19th.

During his last visit to the region last January, Baker proposed to the parties of the conflict a political settlement of the Sahara issue.

Previous Stories:
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  Algerian paper Al Bilad: former defense minister's statement on sahara shock therapy   (3/15/2003)
  La Nouvelle Republique: Algeria shouldn't persist in a hundred-years-standby to support would-be state, Algeria's former defense minister   (3/15/2003)

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