Morocco: Polisario idea to gather sequestered sahrawis is no man's land is unacceptable

A Moroccan minister termed as "unacceptable" an idea proposed by the Polisario front to gather in the "no man's land" the Sahrawis sequestered in the front's south-western Algerian stronghold of Tindouf.

"The Polisario has been preventing the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) from having direct contacts with the sequestered Sahrawis, and has put forward an idea to gather these Sahrawis in a no man's land between the international borders with Algeria and the security belt," Mohamed El-Yazghi, minister of environment, town-planning and housing, told the London-based BBC radio.

The minister insisted that such an idea is "unacceptable" and recalled that Morocco has accepted that the UNHCR opens an office in Laayoune (southern Morocco). He added that the U.N settlement plan for the Sahara requires that the UNHCR have direct contact with each sequestered Sahrawi.

The settlement plan also stipulates the transfer by plane of the sequestered population to their areas of origin, once the identification operation is completed, El-Yazghi added.

U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed in his latest report to the Security Council the resumption on June 1st of the identification of would-be voters in the self-determination referendum in the Sahara.

He also proposed to hold the vote in July 2000 to decide whether the Sahara, a former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under tripartite accords concluded with Spain and Mauritania, remains within Morocco or become independent as claimed by the Polisario.