Sahara: Algeria refuses to sit in round tables

Algeria has informed the UN Security Council of its opposition to the round table format for negotiations on resolving the Sahara problem, which it considers “counterproductive,” according to a senior Algerian official.

Morocco and the Polisario Front separatists, as well as Algeria and Mauritania, are participants in the Security Council-recommended round table arrangement.

“We confirm our formal and irreversible rejection of the so-called Round Table format”, which has become “counterproductive”, declared to the official APS news agency Amar Belani, Algerian special invoy in charge of the question of western Sahara and the Maghreb countries.

Belani further accused Morocco of “instrumentalizing” this format to oppose Sahara “decolonization,” warning of “severe risks of escalation” in this “War situation.”

By the end of October, the United Nations Security Council must adopt a new resolution on the Sahara and the mandate of MINURSO, the UN Mission for the Organization of a Referendum in Western Sahara.

Belani called the first draft of the new resolution “extremely imbalanced,” thinking it will “only sanction a predetermined standstill in the political process and foreshadow the failure of the new UN invoy’s efforts.”

In early October, the United Nations named experienced diplomat Staffan de Mistura as the new invoy for this crisis, despite the fact that UN-sponsored talks had been stalled since spring 2019.