The Moroccan delegation to this meeting is composed of Foreign Minister Taib Fassi Fihri, Director of the intelligence agency (DGED) Mohamed Yassine Mansouri and Secretary-General of the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs (CORCAS), Maouelainin Ben Khalihanna Maouelainin.

    The two-day informal talks were convened by the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for the Sahara, Christopher Ross, after his tour of the region in late October.

    During the audience granted to Ross in Casablanca, HM King Mohammed VI underlined the Kingdom’s full and sincere readiness to back the efforts made by the UN Secretary-General and his Personal Envoy aimed at strictly implementing the Security Council resolutions, adopted after Morocco presented its “autonomy initiative” which pertinently enjoys the realism and the spirit of compromise urged by the international community.

    The Sovereign stressed the need to overcome the status quo, by showing a sincere political will by all the parties to this regional conflict in accordance with the parameters of the Security Council resolutions, reunion requirements for families separated for decades and the requirements of an integrated, prosperous and stable Maghreb.

    In this context, HM the King recalled the terms of the Security Council resolution, which calls for creating an atmosphere propitious for dialogue in order to enter into a more intensive and substantive phase of negotiations, without any attempts at exploitation or diversion.

    The third informal meeting follows those held in August 2009 in the town of Durnstein, near Vienna (Austria ), and in February 2010 in Armonk, near New York.

    It also follows four rounds of formal talks held in Manhasset in 2007 and 2008, under the auspices of the former UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, Peter Van Walsum.

    These talks are part of the implementation of the Security Council resolutions, including resolutions 1813, 1871 and 1920, adopted in April 2008, April 2009 and April 2010 respectively.

    These resolutions call on all parties to engage in intensive and substantive negotiations, taking into account the efforts made by Morocco since 2006, and to show realism and a spirit of compromise to achieve a lasting and political solution to the regional dispute over the Moroccan Sahara.

Source: MAP
News and events concerning Western Sahara issue/ Corcas