Morocco, Polisario Open Sahara Talks Near New York

Morocco and Western Sahara's independence movement opened U.N.-mediated talks on Monday to try to resolve the territory's future.

Morocco and Western Sahara's independence movement opened U.N.-mediated talks on Monday to try to resolve the territory's future, but diplomats expected no quick breakthrough in the 32-year-old dispute.

Under pressure from the Security Council, officials of the two sides, of Algeria, where Sahara's independence-seeking Polisario Front is based, and of Mauritania began two days of meetings at a private estate near New York.

Claiming centuries-old rights, Morocco annexed the phosphate-rich former Spanish colony after Madrid pulled out in 1975. The United Nations brokered an end to a low-level guerrilla war in 1991 but no political solution has followed.

The sides have met at least four times before, most recently in 2000, but U.N. officials have billed this week's talks as the best chance so far. Analysts said, however, they could still see no way around the fundamental problem of whether or not Sahara is to become fully independent.

The cease-fire accord promised a referendum on the fate of the territory on northwest Africa's coast, but it never happened and Rabat now rules it out, saying autonomy is the most it will offer.

"Optimism may eventually be vindicated, but is likely to prove premature, since the underlying dynamics of the conflict have not changed," the International Crisis Group think tank said in a report.

Morocco issued a plan in April for the territory of 260,000 people, but it again was limited to autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty, with key levers of power held by Rabat. Polisario produced its own plan reviving the referendum proposal, with independence as an option.

Morocco has sent Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa and deputy Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri to the talks. The Polisario delegation is headed by veteran leader Mahfoud Ali Beiba, currently speaker of the movement's parliament.

ICE-BREAKER

Dutch diplomat Peter van Walsum, the U.N. special envoy for the Western Sahara, is moderating the talks at the Greentree estate in Manhasset on Long Island. The venue was previously used by the United Nations for border negotiations between Nigeria and Cameroon.

Diplomats said van Walsum was keen to press on with the agenda but they doubted the talks could be much more than an ice-breaker.

"It's very hard for them to talk to each other after many years without any contact," one Arab diplomat said. "You need to build a lot of things before you get into substance. If you just have lunch, that's an achievement."

One spur to negotiations has been that the United States is now impatient for a deal in hopes it will bring more cooperation between North African states and help combat terrorist groups in the regions bordering the Sahara.

The Western Sahara dispute is the main cause of friction between Morocco and Algeria, whose land borders, closed in 1994 amid security tensions, remain shut.

Even before the talks started, one of the Polisario team warned they would fail if Morocco insisted its "colonial" autonomy plan be the starting point.

"We do not ask the impossible. We ask only that the people are consulted on their future," Mohammed Khadad told Algerian state radio on Monday.

Morocco's Benmoussa, quoted by the official MAP news agency, called the talks "an opportunity for peace that Morocco intends to seize in order to turn the page and move forwards."