Morocco, Polisario Front renew peace talks

BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- Morocco and the Polisario Front began direct negotiations on Thursday over the disputed territory of Western Sahara mediated by former U.S. secretary of state James Baker, officials said.

The two sides held similar talks in London on June 28 that ended without a resolution.

"We are waiting to see what James Baker will bring with him. But the most important things are the points still obstructing the implementation of the U.N. peace plan," Zakaria Mohamed Ali, the Polisario's representative in Germany, told Algerian radio in an interview monitored by the BBC.

The long-delayed U.N. plan calls for a referendum to decide whether the former Spanish colony should be incorporated into Morocco, which controls most of the territory, or become independent, as called for by the Polisario Front, based in Algeria.

The referendum, originally set for January 1992, has been repeatedly postponed, due mainly to disagreement over who should be eligible to vote. About 130,000 people, most of them now in Morocco, appealed against rulings excluding them from the vote.

"Naturally, these are technical points and problems. The main problem is the one raised recently by the Moroccan authorities when the voters' identification committee announced the results of its work," the Polisario representative said.

"The question raised is: 'What will the U.N. do to put pressure on the Moroccan authorities so that they respect the U.N. resolutions and international legitimacy?"'

A Moroccan embassy official in Berlin said Foreign Minister Mohamed Benaissa was leading his delegation but did not provide further details. The talks are expected to end on Friday.

War broke out in 1976 after Spain pulled out of the territory and Morocco annexed it and moved settlers in.

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