UNITED NATIONS: Former German President Horst Koehler is trying to bring Morocco and the Polisario Front independence movement together by the end of the year to work on a solution to the 42-year conflict over the Western Sahara, Britain’s deputy UN ambassador said Wednesday.
Koehler, the secretary-general’s personal envoy for Western Sahara, briefed the Security Council behind closed doors, and British envoy Jonathan Allen told several reporters afterward that all 15 members “stressed the importance of consultations with everybody.”
“The president got a lot of support from the council for his approach and for his proposal to try and see if he can bring the parties together by the end of the year,” said Allen, who chaired the meeting as part of Britain’s council presidency this month.
A UN diplomat said Koehler told members that he would be sending invitations to the parties in September.
Morocco annexed Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, in 1975 and fought the Polisario Front. The UN brokered a cease-fire in 1991 and established a peacekeeping mission to monitor it and help prepare a referendum on the territory’s future that has never taken place.
Morocco considers the mineral-rich Western Sahara its “southern provinces” and has proposed giving the territory wide-ranging autonomy. The Polisario Front insists on self-determination through a referendum for the local population, which it estimates at between 350,000 and 500,000.
Sidi Omar, the Polisario Front’s UN representative, said bringing the parties together by the end of the year “would be a positive step in the process, definitely.”
“We’re very willing and ready to accept an invitation should that be addressed to us, to engage in this process in the framework of the United Nations ... to find a lasting and peaceful solution to this longstanding conflict,” Omar said.
Morocco’s UN Mission did not have any immediate comment on the meeting.
Envoy wants Western Sahara parties to meet in 2018: Britain
Envoy wants Western Sahara parties to meet in 2018: Britain
- The Polisario Front insists on self-determination through a referendum for the local population
- Morocco annexed Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony
ICE agents to help with security at Winter Olympics
ROME: Agents from the divisive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will help support US security operations for the Winter Olympic Games in Italy next month, a spokesperson told AFP.
“At the Olympics, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations is supporting the US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and host nation to vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organizations,” the agency said in a statement.
“All security operations remain under Italian authority.”
It added: “Obviously, ICE does not conduct immigration enforcement operations in foreign countries.”
The potential presence of ICE agents at the February 6-22 Games has sparked huge debate in Italy, following the outcry over the deaths of two civilians during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
Italian authorities initially denied the presence of ICE and then sought to downplay any role, suggesting they would help only in security for the US delegation.
US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are attending the opening ceremony in Milan on February 6.
On Monday, the president of the northern Lombardy region, which is hosting some of the Olympic events, said their involvement would be limited to monitoring Vance and Rubio.
“It will be only in a defensive role, but I am convinced that nothing will happen,” Attilio Fontana told reporters.
However, his office then issued a statement saying he did not have any information on their presence, but was responding to a hypothetical question.
Thousands of ICE agents have been deployed by President Donald Trump in various US cities to carry out a crackdown on illegal immigration.
Their actions have prompted widespread protests, and the recent killings of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, on the streets of Minneapolis sparked outrage.
