SPS SADR/MOROCCO/SPAIN/MEDIAS The President of the Republic
hopes for a "clear and sincere” support from Madrid to the referendum
on self-determination
14.11.04
Madrid, 14/11/2004 (SPS) The
President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, hoped the Spanish
Government be "clear and sincere" in its intention to support the
organisation of a referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara as
expected in the Baker Plan.
"The Spanish diplomatic position now seems to us uncertain and
ambiguous", estimated the Head of the State in an interview to the
Spanish newspaper El Mundo in its Sunday edition.
"Since the establishment of the Socialist Government we witnessed an
incomprehensible hesitation of the Spanish diplomacy. One day the
Minster for Foreign Affairs asserts support to the Baker Plan, the next
day supports the opposite. This week he declares that the Baker Plan is
the way, the next week he mentions the need of readjustments (to this
same plan)", underlined President Abdelaziz.
In this respect, he confirmed that the Baker Plan is "a whole to take
or to leave". Polisario Front will accept "no adjustments" that would
modify this plan.
"We negotiated with James Baker for years, sometimes we faced him, and
at the end we accepted his plan. We can not accept now to allow the
other party to modify what we intensively negotiated on for all these
years", he affirmed, referring to the Baker Plan.
Asked about the recognition of SADR by South Africa, Mr. Abdelaziz
indicated that this recognition was due to the attitude of the Moroccan
officials.
"Moroccan officials left the path the Late King Hassan the II drew
since 1981 to organise the referendum on self-determination of the
Saharawi people. (...). It is them who broke the consensus", he
affirmed.
The President of the Republic emphasised that Rabat, after having
proposed to President Thabo Mbeki an encounter between Morocco and
Polisario Front, to "directly negotiate", suddenly decided not to
attend the meeting that was planed for last September the 5th and 6th
in Pretoria, with the presence of representatives from the UN.
Asked if there is a solution exit other than the referendum to the
conflict in Western Sahara, President Abdelaziz declared that "there is
no other solution and could not be. What we ask for is that Saharawis
decide what they want to do with their future. If they want to be
Moroccans, Polisario Front will be ready to accept that". He put.
Asked if the armed struggle was the only option left to Polisario
Front, he indicated that resuming to war is "a probability" among
others. He however qualified as "understandable" the desire of the
Saharawi youth to resume to it.
"They are waiting for the referendum since 1991. How do you expect them
to react when they will have the impression that Morocco is tricking
them. The behaviour of the Moroccan officials is dangerous (...) I am
convinced that if King Hassan II did not die in 1999, the conflict
would have been already resolved, he estimated. (SPS)
SPS SADR/SPAIN/MEDIAS Brahim Ghali hopes that the
meeting between Zapatero and Abdelaziz contributes to "bring the
solution forward”
Madrid, 14/11/2004 (SPS)
Polisario Front Representative to Madrid, Brahim Ghali, hoped that the
next meeting between the President of the Spanish Government, Jose Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero, and the President of the Republic, Mohamed
Abdelaziz, would contribute to "bring the solution forward" in Western
Sahara, reported Saturday Algerian Press Service, APS.
"I hope this meeting be the beginning of a common action (between Spain
and Polisario Front) within the UN and the European Union, so as to
bring the solution (to the Western Sahara conflict) forward and allow
Saharawi people to exercise their right to self-determination",
underlined Mr. Brahim Ghali in a statement to APS.
Mr. Ghali also wished this meeting would be the occasion "to clarify"
the position of the Spanish Socialist Government on the question of
Western Sahara.
The President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, will meet this
November the 26 in Madrid with the Head of the Spanish Government,
José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, announced a Spanish official
source quoted by Spanish Press Agency, EFE.
This meeting, the first between the two Heads of States, comes within
the framework of "the willingness of the (Spanish) Government to
resolve the problem" of Western Sahara, indicated the same source. (SPS)
SAHARA
PRESS SERVICE