2010-03-07
EU president says bloc supports efforts for 'mutually acceptable solution' for Western Sahara.
GRANADA - EU president Herman Van Rompuy called on Morocco during a summit Sunday to make progress in respecting human rights.
Referring to a dispute over the Western Sahara region, Van Rompuy said during the EU-Morocco summit that the European Union supported UN efforts "for a just, lasting and mutually acceptable solution".
"We also wish for improvements to the situation of human rights and their defenders on this issue," he said in Spain's southern city of Granada.
Van Rompuy said he sent a "clear and unequivocal message" about this during the summit, the first between the EU bloc and an Arab country.
Morocco in 1975 annexed the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, sparking a war between its forces and Algerian-backed Polisario guerrillas.
The two sides agreed to a ceasefire in 1991 but the UN-sponsored talks on Western Sahara's future have since made no headway with Rabat pledging widespread autonomy for the region, but ruling out independence.
The Polisario Front wants a referendum on self-determination, with independence as one of the options.
Western Sahara independence activists used the summit to stage a demonstration and their own meeting to highlight their cause.
Among them was high-profile activist Aminatou Haidar who held a 32-day hunger strike last year at an airport on Spain's Canary Islands after Moroccan authorities denied her entry to her native Western Sahara.
Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37673.
EU president says bloc supports efforts for 'mutually acceptable solution' for Western Sahara.
GRANADA - EU president Herman Van Rompuy called on Morocco during a summit Sunday to make progress in respecting human rights.
Referring to a dispute over the Western Sahara region, Van Rompuy said during the EU-Morocco summit that the European Union supported UN efforts "for a just, lasting and mutually acceptable solution".
"We also wish for improvements to the situation of human rights and their defenders on this issue," he said in Spain's southern city of Granada.
Van Rompuy said he sent a "clear and unequivocal message" about this during the summit, the first between the EU bloc and an Arab country.
Morocco in 1975 annexed the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, sparking a war between its forces and Algerian-backed Polisario guerrillas.
The two sides agreed to a ceasefire in 1991 but the UN-sponsored talks on Western Sahara's future have since made no headway with Rabat pledging widespread autonomy for the region, but ruling out independence.
The Polisario Front wants a referendum on self-determination, with independence as one of the options.
Western Sahara independence activists used the summit to stage a demonstration and their own meeting to highlight their cause.
Among them was high-profile activist Aminatou Haidar who held a 32-day hunger strike last year at an airport on Spain's Canary Islands after Moroccan authorities denied her entry to her native Western Sahara.
Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37673.
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