RABAT: UN envoy Christopher Ross, trying to break a decades-old deadlock over the status of Western Sahara, held talks yesterday in the territory’s main city Laayoune, media reports said.
Ross, who arrived in Laayoune on Friday night on a regional tour, met local Moroccan officials as well with civil society groups, both for and against independence for the disputed territory.
Morocco annexed the former Spanish colony in 1975 in a move never recognised by the international community, while its neighbour Algeria backs the pro-independence Polisario Front. The pro-independence group CODESA said it discussed “violations of human rights in Western Sahara” in 90 minutes of talks with Ross, who has made no public comments during his tour.
On Tuesday, he met in Rabat with Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane before travelling to Algeria, where he visited Sahrawi refugee camps.
Algeria said this week it supports “intensified efforts” by the UN envoy to Western Sahara, while underlining the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination. Before leaving Western Sahara on Monday, Ross is also expected to travel to Smara, 240km southeast of Laayoune, for meetings with tribal chiefs and civil society representatives.
The UN Security Council is scheduled to hold consultations on Western Sahara on October 20. Earlier this year, aggressive international lobbying by Rabat successfully shot down an unprecedented US proposal to task the UN peacekeeping force in the territory with human rights monitoring.
A UN Security Council resolution extending the force’s mandate simply stressed the “importance of improving the human rights situation” in Western Sahara and the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. In the weeks after the Security Council vote, scores of pro-independence protesters were wounded in clashes with Moroccan security forces in Laayoune and other towns, where calm has since returned, at least temporarily. AFP
