Efforts by the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon to resolve the conflict in Western Sahara have been dealt a blow by Morocco. The Moroccan government has expressed its reservations over comments made by the UN Chief that “no real progress” has been made by Morocco and the Polisario independence movement to end the conflict.
Ban Ki-moon visited a Sahrawi camp run by the UN in Algeria and asked his special envoy to Western Sahara to relaunch talks between Rabat and the separatist Polisario Front. The UN has been trying to oversee an independence referendum for Western Sahara since 1992 after a ceasefire was reached to end a war that broke out when Morocco sent its forces to the former Spanish territory in 1975. Read more on the Western Sahara crisis here.