MADRID, 28 (EUROPA PRESS)
The envoy of the United Nations Secretary General for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, will hold “bilateral consultations” with representatives of the Polisario Front and the Moroccan authorities.
This has been confirmed by Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, at a press conference, who has indicated that the meetings will take place before the next briefing of the United Nations Security Council in April.
Dujarric specified that the meetings will include the participation of representatives from Algeria, Mauritania and members of the “Group of Friends”, including Spain, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and France.
“In his letters of invitation for this week’s meetings, De Mistura said that he hoped to find a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution that would guarantee the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara, in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the Council of Security, it was possible,” he said.
The meetings have also been confirmed by the representative of the Polisario Front to the United Nations, Sidi Mohamed Omar, on his social networks.
The former Spanish colony was occupied despite the resistance of the Polisario Front, with whom it remained at war until 1991, when both parties signed a ceasefire with a view to holding a self-determination referendum, but differences over the preparation of the census and the inclusion or not of Moroccan settlers has so far prevented its call.
On November 14, 2020, the Polisario Front declared the ceasefire with Morocco broken in response to a Moroccan military action against Saharawi activists in Guerguerat, in the agreed demilitarized zone, which meant for the Saharawis a violation of the conditions of the Stop the fire.