US diplomat appointed as UN mediator in Sahara issue

It is an experienced US diplomat who has coordinated State Department activities towards the Arab world and has previously served as US ambassador in Syria and Algeria that Ban Ki-Moon has chosen to succeed the ambassador Peter Van Walsum former negotiator in the Western Sahara conflict.
After a long career in the US State Department, Christopher W.S. Ross, 65 years old succeeds to the Dutch diplomat who has been committed to the Sahara conflict and has been rewarded for the pertinence of his conclusions, the objectivity of his commitment as well as his command of the realities of the dispute based on “realpolitik”. His famous declaration “the option of independence is neither realistic nor feasible” has exasperated Algeria and the Polisario front which condemned the intrusion of “political realism” in the file.

The new U.N. mediator will face an intransigent Algerian political line towards the conflict in spite the crumbling of its supporters and the lassitude of the international community which has on several occasions, greeted the Moroccan initiative of autonomy as being “serious and credible”.
In the Sahara conflict, Morocco has showed realism and a spirit of compromise by proposing to grant large autonomy to the Sahara region whish constitute the basis of negotiations towards a final settlement of this dispute that has lasted for too long… and the persistence of deadlock in nobody’s interest…