Continuation of preparation for Western Sahara referendum

The UN secretary-general's special envoy to the Western Sahara, ambassador Charles Dunbar, said after meeting with King Hassan II of Morocco that the monarch expressed his country's complete readiness to cooperate with him.

Dunbar described the talks he held with the warring factions as very important and said he will visit Algeria and Mauritania before his return to Laayoune to start work with the identification teams.

Dunbar said he is always in contact with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the former UN envoy James Baker who started the new stage of joint efforts toward a peaceful settlement to the dispute and negotiated the Houston agreement.

UN sources say that Dunbar's visit focuses on the outcome of such moves, which aim at the containment of the Saharan tribes' protests against the Polisario for depriving them from their right to register their names on identification lists.

The identification list is for the purpose of identifying individuals of Saharan origin in order to allow them to vote in a referendum on the independence of Western Sahara.