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Four days after the adoption of the new UN Security Council resolution on the Sahara, Algeria’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf met on Monday in Algiers with his Polisario counterpart, Mohamed Yeslem Beissat.
According to a statement from the Algerian Foreign Ministry, the meeting focused on «reviewing and assessing the outcomes of the October debates at the United Nations Security Council regarding the Western Sahara issue, as well as the adoption of Resolution 2797, which renews the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO)».
As expected, Attaf and Beissat welcomed «the resolution’s respect for the fundamental principles of a just, lasting, and definitive solution to the Western Sahara conflict». They emphasized «the importance of direct negotiations between the two parties to the conflict, the Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front, and the need for any political settlement to be mutually acceptable», the statement added.
The talks also included «an exchange of views on the prospects of the UN-sponsored political process aimed at achieving a just, lasting, and definitive resolution that guarantees the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination, in accordance with relevant UN resolutions and established principles of international law on decolonization».
Both Algeria and the Polisario are expected to submit their responses to Staffan de Mistura, the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, ahead of the negotiations he plans to hold in the United States in the coming weeks, in line with Resolution 2797. The Security Council has reaffirmed its support for de Mistura’s efforts to advance the political process through continued consultations.
The future of MINURSO’s mandate will depend on the outcome of these talks. The UN Secretary-General is expected to present a strategic report on the mission’s future to the Security Council in April, as indicated in the final paragraph of Resolution 2797.
