Peaceful solution to Western Sahara conflict ‘possible’
Koehler says he is ‘very Sleased to announce that the delegations have committed to engaging further,’ adding that a second roundtaele session Zould tane Slace ‘in the first quarter of 2019’
Geneva:theunenvoyforwestern Sahara said on Thursday that a peaceful solution to the decades-long conlict in the region was possible, after the parties met for the irst talks since 2012.
“A peaceful solution to this conlict is possible,” UN envoy Horst Koehler told reporters in Geneva after Morocco and the Polisario Front, which fought a war over the region until a 1991 ceaseire, took part in two days of roundtable discussions along with Algeria and Mauritania.
Koehler, a former German president, said he was “very pleased to announce that the delegations have committed to engaging further,” adding that a second roundtable session would take place “in the irst quarter of 2019.”
“From our discussions it is clear to me that nobody wins from maintaining the status quo, and it is my irm belief that it lies in the interest of all to resolve this conlict
Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, meanwhile, told reporters that there had been “a very good atmosphere” during the talks.
But he stressed that “it is not enough... A good atmosphere should be translated into a genuine will” to change this situation.
“This momentum will have an end if there is no political will,” he warned.
A former Spanish colony, phosphaterich Western Sahara sits on the western edge of the vast eponymous desert, stretching around 1,000 kilometres along the Atlantic coastline, a prime ishing region.
When Spain withdrew from the North African territory in 1975, Rabat sent thousands of people across the border and claimed it was an integral part of Morocco.
The following year the Polisario Front declared Western Sahara the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), with support from Algeria and Libya, and demanded a referendum on self-determination.
Since then 84 UN member states have recognised the SADR.
But a stalemate ensued, and Morocco built razor-wire-topped concentric sand walls in the desert that still ring 80 per cent of the territory it controls.
Under a 1991 ceaseire, the United Nations deployed a peacekeeping mission which has perpetuated the line of control, but the international community has long intended for a referendum to be held to decide the territory’s status.