Morocco, rebels hope to end row

2007-08-10 08:03

New York - The Moroccan government and Polisario Front rebels meet for the second time in two months on Friday to try to resolve their 32-year dispute over the future of Western Sahara, but neither side showed any indication of budging from their opposing positions.

During their first direct negotiations in seven years on June 19-20, Morocco stuck to its proposal for limited autonomy for Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty, while the Polisario Front maintained its demand for a referendum with a choice of autonomy or independence.

Britain's United Nations ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said: "We would encourage all the parties in these talks in Manhasset on Friday to sit down and be as co-operative and as constructive as possible in order to provide a better future for the people of Western Sahara."

Morocco's occupation sparks war

United States ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said on Thursday that "we hope they will get to substantive issues and that there will be further progress".

UN officials and diplomats said the most likely outcome from the two days of talks at the secluded Greentree Estate in Manhasset, about 40km east of New York City, was agreement on another meeting - or a series of meetings.

Morocco and the Polisario Front agreed to meet after the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on April 30, urging talks over the phosphate-rich region.

The talks were being held under the auspices of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's personal envoy for Western Sahara, Peter Van Walsum.

Morocco, whose occupation of the former Spanish colony in 1975 sparked a 16-year war with the Polisario guerrillas, had insisted that its autonomy plan, unveiled in early April, offered "the only realistic solution".

Full-scale war breaks out

The Polisario Front, an indigenous independence movement backed by Algeria, maintained that its April proposal for a referendum with independence as an option was crucial to achieving self-determination for the people of Western Sahara, and to complete the territory's decolonisation.

Morocco and Mauritania split Western Sahara after its Spanish colonisers left the territory in 1975. Full-scale war broke out, and Morocco took over the whole territory after Mauritania pulled out in 1979.

The fighting, which pitted 15 000 Polisario guerrillas against Morocco's US-equipped army, ended in 1991 with a UN-negotiated cease-fire that called for a referendum on the region's future.

But, after 15 years and the expenditure of more than $600m, the UN had been unable to resolve the standoff or hold the referendum.

Former US Secretary of State James A Baker III tried for years to broker a settlement on behalf of the UN.

- AP