RABAT, Oct 22, 2010 (AFP) - The UN special envoy for the Western Sahara, Christopher Ross, arrived Friday in Morocco in hope of reviving talks between the kingdom and the Polisario Front separatist movement, officials said.
Ross arrived in Casablanca from the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott, as part of a tour of the region that has already taken him to Algeria, which backs the Polisario Front's claim to the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.
"Ross is due to meet King Mohammed VI as well as members of the government, including Foreign Minister Taib Fassi Fihri", a government source told AFP. "The aim of this tour is to relaunch talks between Morocco and Polisario."
On Thursday, Ross announced a fresh round of talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front early in November, after talks with Polisario chief Mohamed Abdelaziz, whom he met on Wednesday in a Sahrawi refugee camp near Tindouf in southwest Algeria.
The last informal talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front took place in February near New York, but broke up without progress after two days. Ross was making his fourth trip to the region to seek a breakthrough.
A former Spanish colony, Western Sahara was annexed by Morocco after settlers withdrew in 1975. The north African kingdom stakes a historical claim to the territory, which Polisario violently opposed until the United Nations brokered a ceasefire in 1991.
Polisario wants a UN-organised referendum that would give the Sahrawi people three choices: attachment to Morocco, independence or autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty.
Morocco backs the option of broad autonomy for the territory, but rejects any notion of independence for Western Sahara.
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Copyright AFP 2010.
