Morocco voices utter opposition to any discussions of sahara partitioning

The Moroccan ministry of foreign affairs and cooperation expressed in a statement released Friday its utter opposition to any discussion on a partition of the Sahara territory and cautioned against the extremely dangerous nature of this proposal for stability in the whole region.

Reacting to the UN secretary general Kofi Annan's latest report which cites partitioning the territory as one of four options to the Sahara issue, the ministry says it totally refuses even the idea of discussing the proposal of partitioning Moroccan southern provinces, and underscored that this option engineered and proposed by Algeria risks to have extremely dangerous effects on the stability of the whole region.

Morocco takes note of the U.N. secretary's evaluation of the settlement plan which is considered as unlikely to be applied and of the particularly precise and objective arguments used to reach this conclusion.

The Ministry also recalls that the Moroccan government on Thursday categorically rejected any project or proposal meant to harm Morocco's territorial integrity and its inalienable sovereignty over its southern provinces.

The statement further deplores that by maintaining and kindling this conflict and artificial tension, the Algerian authorities have been hindering the construction of the great Maghreb, prevent rapprochement between peoples and endangered the region's development. It also urges for an urgent settlement to the humanitarian aspects of this issue, mainly the protracted detention of 1,362 Moroccans on Algerian soil and the populations forcibly held in the Tindouf camps for more than 25 years.

The UN secretary general outlines in his report submitted Wednesday to the security council four options for the Sahara issue: either to implement the (initial) settlement plan, revise the framework agreement that grants the Sahara large autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty, partition the territory or end the UN mission in the territory.