UN secretary general recommends extension of UN mission in sahara

UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has recommended, in a report he submitted Friday to the security council, a three-month extension of the mandate of MINURSO (French acronym for the UN mission in charge of supervising a referendum in the Sahara).

The MINURSO mandate will expire this July 31.

Annan stresses that despite efforts by his special envoy, James Baker III, there had been "no progress" during the June 28 meeting in London in resolving any of the multiple problems impeding the implementation of the settlement plan. He also argued that "a political solution was far more preferable than a breakdown of the process which might lead to a return to hostilities."

Annan expressed the hope that the upcoming expert-level meetings in Geneva meetings would yield progress. The Secretary-General's Personal Envoy is expected to meet again with the parties in the presence of the two observer countries, Algeria and Mauritania, to try "once again" to resolve the problems relating to the settlement plan and agree on a political solution to the dispute, according to the report.

The United Nations Organization has been trying since 1990 to hold a referendum to give populations of the Sahara, a former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975, a chance to say whether they want the territory to remain Moroccan or stand up on its own as claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario movement.