UN envoy for Western Sahara meets Algerian leader

ALGIERS: The UN envoy for the Western Sahara had talks Tuesday with Algerian President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika, during a regional tour aimed at resolving a lingering territorial dispute, the APS news agency said.

• Envoy Christopher Ross arrived on Monday in Algiers on the latest leg of a tour that began on Wednesday in Morocco, which lays claim to the disputed Western Sahara. Ross is seeking to end what he described as the “impasse” over the desert territory.
• On Sunday, he visited the Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf in southwest Algeria, across the border from the Western Sahara, which was occupied by Morocco after Spanish settlers withdrew in 1975.
• He then met with Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz Monday.
• “I’m convinced that with good faith from everyone, we can soon manage to settle this problem,” Ross was quoted by the local press as saying.
• Ross was also quoted as saying “negotiations that should open the way to a political solution are in an impasse and we must think to find the best way out of this impasse.”
• Algeria backs the Polisario Front, which disputes Morocco’s territorial claim and has proclaimed a Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and this support for an armed movement has long soured relations between Algiers and Rabat.
• Last Wednesday, Ross had talks with Morocco’s King Mohammad VI.
• The United Nations envoy is making his third regional tour since he took up the job in January of last year. Ross is trying to bring about direct negotiations under the aegis of the United Nations between Morocco and the Polisario independence movement.
• Representatives of the two sides in February had a fruitless informal meeting in New York. Four previous sessions in Manhasset near New York also came to nothing.
• Polisario demands a referendum on self-determination, organized by the UN, which would give Sahrawis the choice of three options: becoming part of Morocco, independence or autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty.
• Morocco proposes far-reaching self-government for the territory, but has refused any talk of independence.