Morocco ready to negotiate for self rule of Western Sahara
Morocco-Algeria, Politics, 9/26/2005

The Moroccan government has announced readiness to make negotiations over the self rule for the Moroccan Sahara.

The minister delegated at the Moroccan foreign ministry al Tayeb al-Fasi al-Fahri said in a statement to Europe press agency that his country will propose to this end to the UN, stressing Rabat's readiness to negotiate over all political and legal points in this regard.

Meantime, the Moroccan minister of information Nabil Abdullah said that the statement to al-Fahri implies Morocco's official position concerning the western Sahara issue. He stressed his country's efforts to maintain a final and definite solution to negotiations that will be on the size of a self rule for the Sahara people under the Moroccan sovereignty.

Bin Abdullah explained that the Moroccan foreign minister Muhammad Bin Issa recently addressed a message for the UN secretary general and to the UN Security Council confirming that there are red lines for Morocco that it cannot jump over in the context of finding a solution, mainly Morocco's sovereignty on the Sahara.

Observers see in this Moroccan position a great change in Rabat's attitude which used to consider that the plan of the former UN envoy James Baker to carry out a "referendum on self determination in the Western Sahara as outdated."

Both the Polisario and Algeria had accepted Baker's plan which called for carrying out the referendum after an interim self-rule of five years, but Rabat called on offering the Sahara people a vast self rule under the Moroccan sovereignty.

Previous Stories:
  Polisario demands protection of prisoners observing hunger strike in Morocco   (9/10/2005)
  Algeria wants good relations with Morocco   (8/22/2005)
  Morocco welcomes its prisoners, holds Algeria responsible   (8/20/2005)
  UN chief to appoint 'very soon' special representative to Sahara   (6/15/2005)
  Moroccan political leader: self-determination in Sahara issue is obsolete option   (5/6/2005)

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