Bouteflika supports W. Sahara independence
Bouteflika supports W. Sahara independence
ALGIERS (Agencies): Algeria's newly elected President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said he supported the Polisario Front in its struggle for independence in the disputed Western Sahara, the official APS news agency said on Thursday.
The remark is likely to anger Morocco, which controls most of Western Sahara, and might affect plans for a rare summit meeting of the five-nation Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) due in Algiers later this year, Rabat-based diplomats said.
In a letter to Polisario leader Mohamed Abdelaziz, Bouteflika said:
"I want to reaffirm the standing position and unfailing support of my country for the just cause of the brotherly Sahrawi people in their struggle for self-determination and total independence in conformity with United Nations resolutions and the Houston accords."
The diplomats said Bouteflika, elected in a one-man race in April 15 after his six opposition rivals withdrew on charges of vote-rigging, had tried to steer clear of the dispute which has poisoned relations with Morocco.
He has repeatedly said the issue was "in the hands of the United Nations" and it was the first time that he used the term "total independence," they said.
The 1991 Houston agreement ended a 15-year-old guerrilla war and called for a referendum the following year to decide the future of the phosphate-rich former Spanish colony. But the poll has been repeatedly delayed and is now set for July 2000.
Relations improved recently after Bouteflika wrote to King Hassan of Morocco, pledging cooperation to improve ties without mentioning the thorny Western Sahara issue.
The monarch responded by appointing a minister for AMU affairs, who last week attended a meeting in Algiers with representatives from fellow members Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania to agree on reviving the long-dormant union.
The 10-year-old AMU has not met since 1995 when King Hassan asked for a freeze of the union's activities, citing "Algeria's involvement" in the Western Sahara dispute.
In another development, Algeria's Interior Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said in an interview published on Thursday that violence by Islamic insurgents will be with Algerians for some time even though the capacity for damage has "enormously diminished."
The French-language daily Le Matin quoted the minister as saying that, even in the capital, "there is still a little group of terrorists hidden for some time."
The minister's remarks were published a day after a booby- trapped package exploded near a movie house in the working-class district of Bab el-Oued, injuring 17 people, one seriously.