UN Envoy Meets Algerian Officials as Western Sahara Talks Stall

Staffan de Mistura, UN Special Envoy for Western Sahara, met on Monday with Ramtane Lamamra, Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, as part of the tour he has embarked on in the region to deepen consultations with all the parties involved. The two personalities discussed the prospects for a resumption of negotiations with the support of the UN. According to Algiers, the organization of "round tables" between Morocco, the Polisario Front, Algeria and Mauritania in Geneva in 2018 and 2019 after a UN resolution have proven "counterproductive". Building on this finding, the neighbor to the east proposes direct negotiations between Rabat and the independence movement "with the aim of reaching a just, lasting and accepted political solution by the two parties, guaranteeing the Sahrawi people the exercise of their inalienable and imprescriptible right to self-determination, in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions and its doctrine on decolonization," specifies Algerian diplomacy in a statement.

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After Algiers, Staffan de Mistura is expected to travel to Mauritania on September 10, 2022, to conduct "consultations with all the parties concerned, with a view to making constructive progress in the political process in Western Sahara," his office said. The UN Special Envoy for Western Sahara has already made a visit to the Tindouf camps (Algeria) followed by a meeting with Polisario officials, including a private interview with Brahim Ghali, its secretary general, as well as a visit to Rabat in July last. He will present a report on this tour next month during a Security Council session.