New U.N Sahara envoy confers with Algerian president

Special representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for the Sahara, William Eagleton, conferred Sunday in Algiers with Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, official sources in the Algerian capital said.

The talks, held in private, were enlarged later to the two sides' delegations.

Eagleton also met Algerian Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmed Attaf, with whom he discussed the implementation of the United Nations settlement plan for the Sahara.

The settlement plan provides for the holding of a self-determination referendum in the Sahara to determine whether the former Spanish colony, retrieved by Morocco in 1975, sets up on its own or remains part of Morocco. The vote is slated for July, 2000.

William Eagleton has been recently appointed Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for the Sahara in replacement of Charles Dunbar. He will supervise the upcoming stages of the self-determination referendum the United Nations has been trying to hold in the Sahara since the beginning of the 1990's. The vote is slated for July, 2000.

The consultation seeks to determine whether the Sahara, a former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975, sets up on its own as claimed by the Polisario, or remains part of Morocco.