A delegation of high-ranking officials, will represent Morocco in talks with the Polisario separatists (June 18-19 in New York) in implementation of a recent United Nations resolution calling for "negotiations without preconditions" between the two parties to solve the three-decade-old Sahara dispute.

The President of the Ivorian Union Démocratique et Citoyenne (UDC), Meleg Théodore, whose party is involved in the presidential movement, affirmed support to Morocco's project to grant autonomy to its Southern Provinces, the Sahara.

Visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, David Welsh said Morocco's proposal to grant substantial autonomy to the Sahara "offers a new possibility and it has led to these rounds of negotiations," in Manhasset, NY, in June, August and January.
 

 Nearly half of the 435-member of the U.S. House of Representatives have urged President George W. Bush to support Morocco's proposal to grant substantial autonomy to its Southern Provinces, the Sahara in a bid to solve the three-decade long dispute over the former Spanish colony.