UN urges Morocco, Polisario to approve candidates entering W Sahara post | Moroccan stories

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says 13 names have been given, but there is no consensus among the parties.

The UN leader on Friday urged Morocco and the Polisario Front to accept a successor to become a special UN envoy to the disputed region of Western Sahara, rejecting all those who had previously represented him.

The Polisario Front has been fighting Morocco for decades for independence in Western Sahara, a desert region that was Spain until 1975.

“It is very important to have a delegate to re-establish political dialogue in Western Sahara,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at a joint press conference in Madrid with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

“The problem is that we have already submitted 13 names and so far we have not reached a political agreement, which is very important… because the delegation has to be involved in initiating political negotiations.”

Resetting the debate on a long-running dispute was also necessary to “address the frustrations that have arisen as a result of problems that have no solution”, he said.

Although Guterres did not name the finalists, he did, according to UN detectives, the UN special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura. The same writers said his name was approved by the Polisario, but was rejected by Morocco.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken in March urged Guterres to speed up the process of electing a new ambassador to Western Sahara for a two-year term.

The post has been vacant since May 2019 when former German President Horst Kohler stepped down, officially for health reasons.

Morocco controls 80% of Western Sahara, while the rest – a region bordering Mauritania where there is not enough water – is run by the Polisario Front and is known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

Rabat has provided an independent segment but maintains it as part of the Moroccan empire.

After 16 years of war, Rabat and the Polisario signed a ceasefire in 1991, but an independent UN-sponsored referendum is constantly being changed.

Western Sahara is designated by the UN as a “sovereign state” whose members “have not yet achieved full independence”.

The fighting resumed in November when the Algerian-backed Polisario announced that the ceasefire had ended after Morocco had sent troops to the UN headquarters to open a highway.