(Algiers) The UN envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, met on Saturday with representatives of the separatists of the Polisario Front in Tindouf, Algeria, as part of his second tour in the region, it was reported. learned from Sahrawi sources.
Posted yesterday at 5:24 p.m.
Mr. de Mistura spoke in a Sahrawi refugee camp notably with the head of the delegation of negotiators of the independence movement Khatri Addouh and the representative of the Polisario at the UN Omar Sidi Mohamed.
The Polisario “is committed to a just peace (and) undertakes to defend, by all means, the right of the Saharawi people to achieve their legitimate objectives for self-determination and independence”, declared Mr. Sidi Mohamed to the press after this interview.
The movement is “ready to cooperate” with the UN and its envoy for this purpose, he added.
The UN envoy, who arrived at dawn in Tindouf, western Algeria, had previously met a group of Saharawi young people and women, according to the Saharawi news agency SPS.
On Sunday, he must meet with Polisario leader Brahim Ghali, the movement’s representative to the United Nations told AFP.
Appointed in November 2021, Staffan de Mistura made his first tour of the region in January, which took him to Rabat, Mauritania, Algiers and Tindouf.
In early July, he had traveled to Rabat to meet Moroccan officials, but had given up on a visit to Western Sahara, hoping to be able to do so at a later date.
The question of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony considered a “non-autonomous territory” by the UN, has for decades pitted Morocco against the Polisario Front, supported by Algiers.
Rabat, which controls nearly 80% of this territory, is proposing an autonomy plan under its sovereignty. The Polisario is calling for a self-determination referendum under the aegis of the UN, planned when a ceasefire was signed in 1991, but never materialized.
Algeria severed diplomatic relations with Morocco in August 2021 due to deep disagreements over Western Sahara and the security rapprochement between Rabat and Israel.
Diplomatic friction between Algeria and Morocco over Western Sahara regularly spills out of the bilateral framework to impact their relations with other countries depending on their position on this issue.