Security Council extends mandate of its mission

The United Nations Security Council extended on Tuesday the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) until 31 July to allow more time to examine Secretary-General Kofi Annan's proposals to break the impasse over the territory's future, UN News reported.

Council set up MINURSO in 1991 to implement a settlement plan between Morocco and the POLISARIO Front, which has been fighting for the independence of the former Spanish colony. The settlement plan aims at allowing the people of Western Sahara to decide through a referendum whether the territory should become independent or remain part of Morocco.
"Despite extensive preparations, the conditions for holding the referendum have never been met," UN News reported.

A major problem has been lack of agreement on who is eligible to vote in this referendum. In his latest report on the situation, Annan expressed hope that the Council would soon decide "how it wishes to proceed with regard to the future of the peace process in Western Sahara", UN News reported.

In another report to Council, Annan presented four options to overcome the stalemate: The first would have the UN resume trying to implement the 1988 settlement plan, even without the concurrence of POLISARIO and Morocco; the second would have Annan's personal envoy, James Baker III, try to revise the draft Framework Agreement - with or without the agreement of the parties; the third would give Baker mandate to discuss a possible division of the territory with interested parties; and fourth would see the Council terminate MINURSO due to the lack of progress.

"We cannot accept any kind of partition of our Sahara provinces," the Moroccan foreign minister, Mohammed Benaissa was reported by the Morocco news agency as saying on Tuesday.
In a related development Tuesday, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard refuted media reports that Baker had said he would resign if the Council failed to give him a mandate to work on revising the draft Framework Agreement, UN News reported.

Baker, Eckhard said, "favours any option that will give him a clear mandate and which will have the support of the Security Council. He is of the view that any option that the Security Council chooses, should give the Secretary-General and his Personal Envoy sufficient authority to try and resolve the long-standing conflict over Western Sahara."