UN rebukes Morocco calls for Western Sahara envoy change

Bikya Masr Staff | 26 August 2012

 

CAIRO: The United Nations has refused pressure from the Moroccan government to change its peace envoy to the Western Sahara.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday reportedly told Morocco’s King Mohamed VI that he would not acquiesce to their demands that the envoy be changed in relation to the decades-long conflict in Western Sahara.
The Moroccan government in May had said it had no confidence in UN envoy Christopher Ross. They accused him of being “unbalanced and biased” in his dealings between the two parties.
Morocco, which occupies Western Sahara said Ross was not approaching the situation from an equal perspective.
But in a telephone call, Ban’s office said he told the “the United Nations does not intend to modify the terms of its mediation, whose purpose is to promote the achievement of a mutually acceptable political solution to this conflict.”
Ban said that Ross and the head of the UN mission in Western Sahara, Wolfgang Weisbrod-Weber, “will fulfill their respective mandates in promoting the negotiating process,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky added in a statement.
UN diplomats said Morocco has demanded that Ross be replaced and that Ban’s call with the King Mohammed was intended to reaffirm his refusal to give in to pressure.
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