Moroccan interior minister meets UN secretary general's special representative for Sahara

Moroccan Minister of the Interior Driss Basri met in Rabat on Tuesday with the UN secretary general's special representative for the Sahara, William Eagleton, who was accompanied by the chairman of the UN identification commission, Eduardo Vetere.

US national William Eagleton was appointed to the position last May in replacement of Charles Dunbar who had resigned in March "for personal reasons." He is the man in charge of MINURSO, a French acronym for UN mission supervising the holding of a referendum in the Sahara.

The world body will hold next July a referendum to give to the population of the Sahara, a former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid accords, the opportunity to say whether they wish to set up their own independent state as claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario or remain within Morocco. Initially scheduled in 1991, when a cease-fire was proclaimed in the region, the voting has been repeatedly delayed.

Prior to the voting itself, the UNO is undertaking a series of related activities, including an arduous identification operation, to determine persons eligible to participate. Other preparations include appeals procedures running between July 15 and February 2000 to give to local populations who deemed that they were unjustly dropped from the voter lists a second chance to prove their eligibility.