Le Nouvel Afrique-Asie: Moroccan fm ascribes deadlock in sahara settlement to Algeria

Algeria has conducted a diplomatic campaign against Morocco over the Sahara issue and has opposed all internationally-accepted initiatives to reach a negotiated and peaceful solution to the issue, said Moroccan minister of foreign affairs and cooperation, Mohamed Benaissa.

In an interview with French monthly "Le Nouvel Afrique-Asie" which published a special report on the freezing of the institutions of the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) following the postponement last June of the Maghreban summit that was to convene in Algiers, the head of Moroccan diplomacy said Morocco is not responsible for the deadlock and has never hampered attempts to re-activate the structures of the Maghreban union.

UMA, set up in 1989, musters Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.

It is on Moroccan land that the grouping was born, he stressed insisting that the UMA charter stipulates that no member country shall give asylum to movements threatening the security of another member-country. This is a major reason why the Union is frozen, he explained.

When the UMA was set up, the Sahara problem was already posed, but we had hoped that the grouping would become a framework for settling such issues, Benaissa further explained.

He also hoped that Algeria will favorably react to the proposals put forward at the UNO and at the UMA in order to reach a way out, preserving Morocco's sovereignty and Algeria's interests in the region.