Middle East Online coverage of official Spanish & French visits to Algiers

1: Zapatero urged to clarify stance on WSahara, 16 July
2: Barnier urges progress on Western Sahara, 13 July
3: Moratinos: WSahara issue must be resolved, 12 July
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1:
Zapatero urged to clarify stance on WSahara

Spanish political parties call on Prime Minister to clarify Madrid's position
on Western Sahara's status.

Middle East Online

16 July 2004

MADRID - Political parties have urged Spanish Prime Minister Jose-Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero to clarify Madrid's position on the status of the territory
of Western Sahara, media reports said Friday.
In a midweek visit to Algiers, Zapatero, who took office in March, said he
believed the United Nations should play a decisive role in resolving a dispute
between Algiers and Rabat over the status of the territory, which Morocco
annexed completely four years after Spanish settlers left in 1975.

Zapatero's conservative predecessor Jose Maria Aznar backed the UN's "Baker
Plan" - named after the UN secretary general's former special envoy to the
Western Sahara James Baker - to resolve the conflict, but the new socialist
administration has rarely mentioned it.

The Baker plan was drawn up before the onetime US secretary of state quit this
year, unable to persuade the independence movement in the former Spanish
colony, the Polisario Front, and Morocco to agree on its implementation.

The aim has been to bestow immediate autonomy on the Western Sahara during a
five-year transition period to prepare for a referendum on independence.

In Algiers, Zapatero said he did not want to be bound by a plan "be it called
Baker or not. It will be effective only if it meets with the agreement of all
parties involved."

Gustavo de Aristegui, foreign policy spokesman of the main opposition party
which Aznar led until Zapatero's election victory, on Thursday called on the
government to clarify its position.

In addition, the pro-communist United Left said it would demand a
parliamentary debate in the belief that Zapatero "is forgetting the rights of
the Sahrawis".

El Mundo daily Friday accused Zapatero of having "effected a 180-degree turn
in Spanish policy while in Algiers" with regard to the issue, which sections
of the media see as liable to fuel Sahrawi and Algerian fears of a
Madrid-Paris axis bolstering Moroccan claims to continued sovereignty.

The ABC daily quoted Sahrawi Minister for Europe Mohamed Sidati as saying that
"Spain today does not have an independent foreign policy but a policy bound by
what France does. We are back to a Paris-Madrid-Rabat axis."

ABC further quoted Sidati as saying Spain was now flowing with a "current
which advocates strong relations with Morocco."

Polisario has set up its own government for the Western Sahara, which it calls
the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, a territory recognised by many nations
within the African Union, but not by the United Nations.

Rabat has rejected any idea of a referendum. It proposes "widespread
definitive autonomy", but wants to retain Moroccan sovereignty which it sees
as "non-negotiable."

Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos said Friday that Spain would "not rule out
the idea of a referendum" and would "not betray the legitimate rights of the
Sahrawi people."

On Tuesday, also in Algiers, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier urged
Algeria and Morocco to get back to the negotiating table and called for
dialogue.
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Source: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=10660
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2:
Barnier urges progress on Western Sahara

Middle East Online
13 July

French FM urges direct dialogue between Algiers and Rabat to resolve dispute
over Moroccan territory of Western Sahara.

By Indalecio Alvarez - ALGIERS

Visiting French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier on Tuesday urged direct
dialogue between Algiers and Rabat to resolve a long-running dispute over the
Moroccan territory of Western Sahara.

"Dialogue between these two countries would be essential and very useful. We
encourage it," Barnier said at a joint press conference with his Algerian
counterpart Abdelaziz Belkhadem.

The status of Western Sahara, annexed by Morocco in 1975 at independence from
Spain, is among the thorniest issues between France and Algeria, which backs
the Polisario Movement seeking independence from Rabat.

Polisario has accepted a UN plan, rejected repeatedly by Morocco, under which
Western Sahara would have immediate autonomy during a five-year transition
period to prepare for a referendum on independence.

Barnier, who visited Rabat at the end of May, said he had noted a "very great
readiness on both sides to continue the dialogue and to give it new impetus."

Belkhadem said Algiers was "determined to move forward" on the issue, saying
it was "vital to develop relations with Morocco."

But he repeated Algeria's traditional position that Western Sahara is a
product of decolonization in Africa, and as such its status should be resolved
by the United Nations.

"It is a matter of respecting people's right to self-determination," he said.

Algeria has refused to join any dialogue with Morocco without Polisario
representatives present, and has insisted on having only observer status in
such talks.

Barnier, whose visit is the second in a series of high-level trips by French
leaders to the north African country in June and July, has appeared keen to
set aside contentious issues between France and its former colony while
pressing for a deeper partnership.

"The government of my country is ready to nourish and solidify relations
between our two people," he said.

On arriving here Monday, Barnier wasted little time in announcing the signing
of three new accords covering water resources, earthquake preparedness and
technical cooperation in an archeological project.

The foreign minister, in a meeting with French residents here Monday evening,
praised entrepreneurs operating in Algeria, and urged stepped-up investments.

"We must go further, consolidate, help this special partnership thrive ... in
the Euro-Mediterranean region, boost cooperation in multiple sectors,
including economic, political, cultural and human," he said.

Barnier's visit follows close on a visit last month by Finance Minister
Nicolas Sarkozy and comes ahead of a visit by Defense Minister Michele
Alliot-Marie this weekend.

The diplomatic flurry has prompted editorials in Algeria's lively independent
press speculating over a rivalry between the United States and France over the
north African country - which Barnier dismissed in an interview with an
Algerian newspaper ahead of the visit.

The daily Liberte said that France wanted to "outwit the Americans, who have
never hidden their desire to make Algeria a lynchpin country, notably in the
fight against terrorism."

France and Algeria are intimately linked by a 132-year colonial history, by
the memories of hundreds of thousands of French citizens who fled Algeria at
its independence in 1962, and by the experience of the two million people of
Algerian nationality or origin who now live in France.

Despite close economic and cultural ties, the legacy of the 1954-1962
independence war has been a constant strain, with a shroud of secrecy over
torture, massacres and disappearances during the conflict.

The relationship turned a corner last year, however, when French President
Jacques Chirac paid a state visit to Algeria aimed at ushering in a new era of
cooperation. He arrived to a rapturous welcome by hundreds of thousands of
people lining the streets.

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Source: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=10617
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3:
Moratinos: WSahara issue must be resolved

Middle East Online
July 12

Spanish FM calls for common north Africa policy with France, urges resolution
to problem of Western Sahara.


MADRID - EU partners France and Spain should forge a joint policy towards
north Africa, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos said in an interview
published Sunday, urging a resolution to a long-standing territorial dispute
over Western Sahara.

"The message received in Algiers, Rabat or Tunis should be the same whether it
comes from Madrid or from Paris," Moratinos told the daily El Mundo, adding:
"In order to unite the Maghreb (north African) region, the problem of Western
Sahara must be resolved."

The former Spanish colony, annexed by Morocco in 1975, is claimed by the
pro-independence Polisario Front, which is backed by Algeria.

Moratinos warned, however, that a referendum in the territory at this stage
would not necessarily resolve the issue. In 1988, Morocco and the Polisario
Front agreed to a ceasefire ending a 22-year war for independence and for the
holding of a referendum under the auspices of the United Nations. The UN set
up a mission to monitor the ceasefire and organize the referendum in 1991.

"A referendum at this time without a political solution could lead us to a
generalized crisis in North Africa," he said.

He said it was impossible to tell how Morocco would react. "And would the
Moroccan armed forces accept being defeated in a referendum?" he added.
"Second option. Morocco wins the referendum, and then what?"

Moratinos said Spain's new socialist government would work in coming months
and years towards modernizing its approach to north Africa.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who took office in March, visited
Morocco in April and is scheduled to go to Algiers on Wednesday for talks with
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Moratinos said a visit to Tunis was also being
planned.

The government has said the Arab world and the Mediterranean would be the
focus of its foreign policy, which under the previous center-right government
was oriented towards the United States. One of the first moves of the Zapatero
government was to remove Spanish troops from Iraq.

Moratinos said he would attempt to resume a dialogue over the British colony
of Gibraltar when he meets British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in Brussels
Monday. Tensions have risen over the territory, which is claimed by Spain,
since a visit by Britain's Princesse Anne and the docking in Gibraltar of a
British nuclear submarine, despite Madrid's objections.

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Source: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=10595
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More articles in Spanish:
-
http://es.groups.yahoo.com/group/revista-de-prensa-sahara-occidental/message/52
-
http://es.groups.yahoo.com/group/revista-de-prensa-sahara-occidental/message/53
More articles in French:
-
http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/revue-de-presse-sahara-occidental/message/48
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Forwarded by:
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Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara
wsahara@...

*** Referendum now! ***

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sahara-update
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