Paraguayan foreign minister, Alejandro Hamed Franco, said, here Monday following the first session of the joint bilateral committee, that his country "continues to hold its traditional position" with regard to the Sahara issue, which "remains absolutely unchanged."

The association of the disappeared of the Polisario on Sunday waged a sin in in the southern city of Laayoune, to voice solidarity with the women held in the Polisario-run camps of Tindouf.

Algeria is the only country in the world that opposes the return to Morocco of people living on its territory, Morocco's permanent ambassador to the United Nations Office at Geneva said on Thursday.

Souilka Amine and her 24-year-old daughter, Fatima Hamma, two Moroccan citizens, have managed to flee the Polisario-run Tindouf camps, south-western Algeria, to return to their motherland Morocco.

Autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only compromise solution to the Sahara issue, said Professor Ira William Zartman of the American Johns Hopkins, University calling on the United States and the European Union to play a greater role in helping resolve this regional conflict.