New York, March 24, 2018 (SPS) - Former German president, Horst Köhler, has clearly defined his mission as a special envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General for Western Sahara, by telling the UN Security Council it is "to find a path to the future" that may lead to a solution ensuring self-determination for Western Sahara people.
"My role in the process is not that of a referee saying who was right and who was wrong in the past. My mission consists in finding a path to the future, a path that leads to a mutually acceptable solution providing for Western Sahara people's self-determination," Köhler said in his first report on Western Sahara.
Köhler, who explained his view on the peace process he intends to give a fresh start soon, said his goal is to relaunch direct negotiations between the two parties to the conflict in 2018.
Those negotiations, however, "are not an end in themselves" as they "will not be fruitful unless they are conducted with realism, a spirit of compromise, in good faith and without preconditions."
Resolution 2351 is obvious in this respect, and we do not need a new terminology, but a will to make this speech senseful and followed by action, Köhler said.
UN chief's special envoy for Western Sahara rejected the conditions of Morocco, which refuses to return to the table of negotiations unless its autonomy plan is the only option for the settlement of the conflict. (SPS)
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