Magharebia

[AFP/Fadel Senna] UN envoy Christopher Ross visited Morocco on January 27th during a new tour of the region to push for a peaceful resolution to the Western Sahara conflict.

By Siham Ali in Rabat for Magharebia

A solution to the Western Sahara dispute is necessary to improve security in the Sahel region, experts say.

The United Nations Special Envoy for Western Sahara is trying once again to achieve a peaceful resolution to the frozen conflict.

Christopher Ross wrapped up his latest Maghreb tour this week after meeting with Moroccan Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar.

No details about the January 27th talks in Rabat were revealed.

Last week, he met with Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal. He also traveled to the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf for talks with Polisario chief Mohamed Abdelaziz.

The regional visit continued in Mauritania, where Ross met with Mauritanian Prime Minister Moulay Ould Mohamed Laghdaf and other officials.

“He will convene another round of face-to-face negotiations between the parties only when prospects for progress at a joint meeting of the parties improve,” the UN said in a statement.

Appointed in 2009 as the personal envoy to the Western Sahara for UN chief Ban Ki-moon, Ross said after his last regional tour in October that there was still no hope of convening face-to-face talks between Morocco and the Polisario, AFP reported.

Ahmed Chrifi, a political analyst, said that Ross would still like to facilitate direct or indirect negotiations between Morocco and the Polisario.

“It is high time to move forward with the talks between the two parties, which have been deadlocked for years,” he said. “It would be necessary to re-launch the negotiations on a credible footing,” he added.

Another political analyst, Noureddine Selhami, lamented the lack of any major breakthroughs in the situation over the past few years.

The stalemate is especially worrisome, given the threats to Sahel stability already posed by terrorism and trans-border crime.

“It is in everyone’s interests to resolve the conflict, which is a cause for additional concern regarding security across the entire region,” he explained.