A Moroccan delegation, led by Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, met UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for the Sahara, Horst Köhler in Lisbon this Tuesday. The Moroccan delegation comprises Morocco’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Omar Hilale, President of the Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra region, Sidi Hamdi Ould Errachid, and President of the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab region Ynja Khattat. The United Nations opened negotiations between Morocco and the Polisario separatists in 2007, after Morocco presented an autonomy plan for the Sahara that the UN Security Council deemed as “serious and credible”. Algeria continues to fund and support diplomatically and militarily the Polisario militias which it hosts in the region of Tindouf since the 1970s. The Polisario have been using Algerian territories as a rear base for their guerrilla warfare against Morocco until the UN-brokered ceasefire agreement in 1991.

Source: The North Africa Journal March 06, 2018 16:18 UTC