Annan echoes Moroccan proposal to settle sahara issue within moroccan kingty, proposes extension of UN Sahara mission mandate

United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, on Thursday echoed Morocco's proposal to settle the Sahara issue within Moroccan sovereign and recommended that the Security Council extends the mandate of the MINURSO (UN mission for the referendum in Sahara), which is set to expire at the end of this month, to February 28, 2001.

In a report to the Security Council, Annan touched on the latest round of talks in Berlin between Morocco and the Polisario, which was mediated by his Personal Envoy, James Baker III.

The Moroccan party proposed that its Government enter into direct talks with the POLISARIO, under the auspices of the Personal Envoy, to seek a political solution, subject to stated concerns involving Morocco's sovereignty and territorial integrity, Annan said. He recommended the extension of the MINURSO mandate to help Morocco develop the offer of "some devolution of governmental authority, for all inhabitants and former inhabitants of the Territory," that is in keeping with international norms.

If this proposal is not reached, MINURSO should begin hearing the pending appeals from the identification process on an expedited basis, without regard as to how long it might be expected to take to complete them.

The report recalled the proposals and criticism made by Morocco to correct all errors and deviation that marked the settlement plan since 1991.

Morocco had attracted attention to the problems facing the appeal procedures and to the impossibility to lead the operation to safety shores if the Polisario Sheikhs intervene in the examination of appeals introduced by 140,000 Moroccan candidates to identification and rejected by the identification commission.

Morocco also highlighted the negative role played by the Polisario representatives, who unfairly rejected a large number of candidates and who acted upon strict instructions not to observe impartiality.

Morocco had also called on the international community to heed the inhuman treatment imposed by the Polisario on the Moroccan refugees sequestered in the Tindouf camps, stronghold of the polisario in south-western Algeria.