Morocco to start dialogue with UN on fair, comprehensive settlement to Sahara issue, official says
The Moroccan government is readying to start dialogue with the United Nations to reach a fair and comprehensive settlement to the Moroccan Sahara issue.
The announcement was made Wednesday by Moroccan secretary of state for foreign affairs and cooperation, Taieb Fassi Fihri, at the parliament question time.
The Moroccan government is readying to start dialogue with the United Nations, at the UNO's request, to reach a fair and comprehensive settlement to the Moroccan Sahara issue, Fihri said.
He said in view of the obstacles hampering the implementation of the UN settlement plan on the Sahara, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, appointed in February 2000, for the second time, James Baker --former US secretary of state-as his personal envoy for the Sahara issue in a bid to reactivate the UN plan providing for the holding of a referendum or envisage a political solution in case the UN plan fails.
In the frame of the first option, the Moroccan official explained, two meetings were held in May and June 2000, under the aegis of James Baker. Morocco had then made practical and objective proposals for the organization of the referendum and the settlement of the problems related to the identification of would-be voters in the referendum.
James Baker came to the conclusion that divergences in the parties' standpoints made it impossible to score any progress for holding the referendum and consequently opted, during the Berlin meeting in September 2000, for the second alternative, namely to seek a political solution, Fihri said.
He recalled that Morocco had afterwards voiced readiness to open an earnest dialogue with the other party to reach a final solution taking into account Morocco's supreme interests, its national territorial integrity and sovereignty as well as the region characteristics, in the frame of the respect of the principles of democracy and decentralization.
The Moroccan official also recalled that King Mohammed VI had underlined this option In the speech he delivered on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Green March.
The United Nations has been trying since 1991 to hold a referendum in the Sahara --a Moroccan southern territory that was formerly under Spanish rule and that was retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid accords. The vote, to give the people of the Sahara a choice between independence or integration with Morocco, has been however repeatedly delayed because of the maneuvers of the separatist polisario which, fearing a Moroccan victory, seeks to shrink the voters list.
