The U.N. Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for the Sahara, Christopher Ross, announced, on Tuesday in Manhasset, that he will visit the region next May.

“The Personal Envoy will embark, with the assistance of the parties and the neighboring states, on a regional visit starting in mid May 2012,” Ross at the end of the 9th round of informal talks on the Sahara.

Ross also announced that the next informal talks on the Sahara will take place next June in Europe and in July 2012 “in a place to be determined.”

He said that the new series of informal talks (March 11-13) took place in “an atmosphere of serious engagement, frankness, and mutual respect.”

The parties continued “to deepen the discussion on their respective proposals,” he said, underlining, however, that “each party continued to reject the proposal of the other as the sole basis for future negotiations, while reiterating their willingness to work together to reach a solution in conformity with the pertinent resolutions of the United Nations.”

News and events concerning Western Sahara issue