Moroccan king meets UN special representative for Sahara

King Mohammed VI received in Ifrane on Friday the special representative of the UN secretary general for the Sahara, William Eagleton.

The meeting was attended by minister of foreign affairs and cooperation, Mohamed Benaissa, interior minister, Ahmed El Midaoui, secretary of state for foreign affairs, Taieb Fassi Fihri, secretary of state for the interior, Fouad Ali El Himma, and Morocco's delegate to the UN, Ahmed Snoussi. Eagleton had met on Thursday foreign minister, Mohamed Benaissa.

Eagleton is currently on a North African tour that took him to Algeria, Mauritania and Tindouf, the stronghold of the Polisario secessionists.

The United Nations is trying to hold a referendum in which the population of the Sahara would say whether they want this former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid accords to remain a Moroccan territory or stand on its own as claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario secessionists.

Repeatedly postponed, the voting, supervised by a UN mission deployed in the territory since 1991, was tentatively set for July 2000 but was once again delayed as the handling of 79,000 appeals by persons of Sahrawi descent who were not included in the UN voter lists will be a lengthy process.