SAHARA PRESS SERVICE

Caracas, 05/09/2004 (SPS) Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, expressed his preoccupation about the intransigent attitude of Morocco and its dissent to "its compromise with the United Nations to search a solution that pass through the organisation of a referendum so as the people of Western Sahara can decide over their future", has quoted the Venezuelan newspaper, Diario Ultimas Noticias.

Venezuela “will rise its voice to back the Saharawi claims and exhort Morocco to conform to Security Council pertinent resolutions", declared Mr. Chavez, after his meeting with President Mohamed Abdelaziz Thursday at the Presidential Palace of Miraflores in Caracas.

Mr. Chavez a affirmed, according to the same source, that he will ask the international community "a firm and effective support to the United Nations, so as it can impose the respect of Security Council's resolutions and so as the path of the self-determination of the Saharawi people be followed again", on the occasion of the next meeting of the UN's General Assembly, which is expected for the coming in New York, indicated the newspaper.

The Venezuelan diplomatic offensive will opt for the peaceful resolution of the conflict in order to "ovoid the resonance of the guns again in Western Sahara", said Chavez.
 
The President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, has undertaken a diplomatic visit to his Venezuelan counterpart last Thursday, in which he asked for the support “to save peace in the region and to intervene urgently in order to avoid a new deterioration of the situation in the zone". (SPS)

020/090/000/TRD 051445 Sept 04 SPS