Doha – Morocco’s withdrawal of its confidence in UNSG personal envoy for the Sahara Christopher Ross stems from the Kingdom’s conviction that Ross deviated from objectivity and neutrality in managing the negotiation process on this conflict, Communication minister and government spokesperson Mustapha El Khalfi said.
In an interview published Monday by Qatari paper “Al Arabe”, El Khalfi said that the withdrawal of confidence in Ross is the result of his biased and unbalanced stances which undermined his ability to manage a successful negotiation process on this artificial conflict.
“Under Ross’s supervision, the negotiation process was supposed to lead to an acceptable political solution to this long-running dispute related to a national issue of paramount importance for us,” the minister said, recalling that Ross remained, throughout the period during which he was managing the talks process, unable of making the parties concerned engage in real negotiations to reach a solution.
The withdrawal of confidence in Ross is a real invitation for the UN to see to it that the Security Council resolutions, which call for real talks to achieve a lasting and mutually-acceptable political solution, redress the situation and take the measures necessary to put negotiations on the right track, are duly implemented.
The UNSG personal envoy for the Sahara was in charge of managing the negotiations process for around three and a half year, El Khalfi emphasized, saying that he was supposed to oversee two or three set of talks utmost. “Today, we have held nine rounds of informal talks with no prospect for resolution. There is an ambiguity on the Sahara issue which makes us think that it has reached a dead end and that talks are no making any progress.”
The minister recalled that Morocco submitted in 2007 its autonomy proposal for the southern provinces as a solution of “no winner, no loser”.
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