Negotiations with the Polisario in Armonk City: Morocco pushing for autonomy initiative.

After two days of informal talks with the Polisario Front in Armonk city, in the outskirts of New York, the Moroccan negotiating team headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Taïeb Fassi Fihri, affirmed in a press conference that the Moroccan Sahara autonomy initiative has been presented once again, and that “we (negotiators) responded to some observations and questions about it”. For the first time, it seems that the Moroccan proposal had been entirely exposed to the other parties involved in the conflict, and that the latter wanted to have additional explanations about it. It is not clear whether it is another tactical maneuver from the Algerian support to the Polisario Front, or a breach meaning that the future negotiations round would be formal, following the Manhasset rounds example. Few specialists would go forward in making such a prognosis, as the Polisario Front and Algeria position is so much complicated to interpret, and the team present in Armonk does not have enough freedom to make a complete political statement. In fact, there is a hint of mystery about these two days of informal negotiations and about the real leaders of Algiers as well, who are organizing themselves for the end of the President Bouteflika’s reign.

Indeed, for many weeks, some evident signals converge towards a future reorganization of power in Algeria, highlighting the pre-eminence of the military Intelligence as a military structure, and pushing back the substitute of the remaining policy, in which the FLN is playing bit parts. Would this situation have whatever impact on the Sahara issue blocked for more than 30 years? The next coming days will tell us…