Bouteflika's reference to Sahara at Durban conference impertinent, Benaissa

Moroccan foreign affairs and cooperation minister, Mohamed Benaissa, termed as "impertinent" the reference made Friday in Durban by Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, to the Sahara issue.

The reference made by Bouteflika to the Sahara issue at a round table of heads of state is impertinent, Benaissa told MAP.

The World conference of Durban is supposed to deal with racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia issues and not with political conflicts, such as that of the Sahara, that the United Nations tries to settle through associating all parties, including Algeria, he said.

The Algerian president, who was speaking of progress made in struggle against colonialism, said this blatant injustice still befalls whole peoples whose rights to statehood is still denied like the Palestinian people and whose right to freely determine their future is also still denied like the people of the Sahara.

Arab and European delegations as well as a large number of African delegations deemed Bouteflika's reference to the issue inappropriate let alone xenophobe.

During the round table, held at the first day of the World conference against racism, the 14 heads of state attending and the representatives of non-governmental organizations discussed themes related to the generic topic of the conference and no one of them raised regional conflicts.