Moroccan FM highlights need to engage in serious dialogue with Algeria on Sahara

Moroccan minister of foreign affair and cooperation, Mohammed Benaissa, has underlined the need for a "serious dialogue between Morocco and Algeria on the issue of the Moroccan Sahara," insisting that dialogue should lead to "a negotiated and consensual political solution between us and our brothers in Algeria."

In a statement to the Moroccan TV 2M, the minister said "the issue of borders (É) and several others can be solved should there be a political resolve and good intentions."

Morocco and Algeria are at loggerheads mainly because of Algiers' support to the separatist movement "Polisario," claiming independence of the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid accords.

Benaissa, who flew back, Monday, from Algiers where he attended the meeting of the foreign affairs ministers' council of the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) (a North African regional grouping mustering Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia), added that the UMA project will continue to be hampered if the "disputes and sometimes conflicts between UMA member countries" are not settled.

The 7th summit of UMA, initially due this December 23-24, was postponed Monday upon Libya's request for unspecified reasons. Although UMA project was launched in 1989, the heads of state of the five member countries could not meet since 1994 mainly because of differences among them.