UN Chief Urges Morocco and Polisario to Agree on Western Sahara Envoy

At a joint press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez during a visit to Madrid, Antonio Guterres indicated that "it is absolutely essential to have a special envoy to relaunch the political dialogue on Western Sahara." Since the resignation of the last special envoy, former German President Horst Köhler in May 2019 for health reasons, the position has been vacant. And for good reason, "we have already proposed 13 names, and so far we have not obtained the consensus of the parties," lamented Guterres.

In this sense, he invited Morocco and the Polisario "to welcome the next candidate, because it is absolutely essential to relaunch the political dialogue, to also address all the frustrations that exist in a crisis that, for the moment, has no solution." According to diplomatic sources at the UN, the 13th candidate rejected by the two parties would be Staffan de Mistura.