Third round of talks on 7 January; Congress "confronted to decisive choices"

Sahara Press Service

4 December 2007

Algiers (SPS) The 3rd round of direct negotiations between POLISARIO Front and Morocco, under the auspices of the UN will take place next January 7, 8 and 9, 2008 in Manhasset, New York, Saharawi Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mohamed Salem Ould Salek, declared in an interview with the Algerian newspaper, "El Khabar", in its Monday edition. 

The Saharawi Minister stressed that the UN Secretary General's Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, Peter Van Walsum, has sent last week a new letter to propose the holding of this 3rd round in January in Manhasset. The Saharawi official indicated that POLISARIO Front "does absolutely not oppose the pursuit of negotiations". 

Regarding the Moroccan position vis-�-vis the talks, the Head of the Saharawi diplomacy indicated that Morocco "created obstacles to the process of negotiations, putting as a condition, the recognition of its territorial sovereignty on Western Sahara". This position, he adds, "contradicts the objectives underlined and defined by the Security Council?s resolutions 1754 and 1783 that stipulate a political solution that provides for self-determination". 

All the arguments presented by the Moroccan party "has for unique goal: to win time, to manoeuvre and reject the international legality", he estimated. 

"The stubbornness of Morocco stems from the positions of those who support it", Mr. Ould Salek estimated, pointing especially to France, which, according to him, "hinders, since 1991, the holding of a referendum and continues to put obstacles to the peace process in the region of the Arab Maghreb". 

The Saharawi Minister declared he was "astonished" from the fact that the French policy "is contradictory to the French strategic interests", adding that "what is really disappointing is that France, well known of been the land of liberties and human rights, is supporting a feudal regime and keeps silent about the human rights violations it commits in Western Sahara". 

Concerning the 12th Congress POLISARIO Front, which will take place this December the 14th, the Saharawi official considered that it will be "crucial and historical because it will be confronted to decisive choices, mainly to define its position vis-�-vis the prevailing status of no war-no peace, and decide on the struggle for national liberation either by resuming war, or by negotiations, or the two at the same time, or wait for the outcomes of the 3rd round of negotiations to decide after".