Algiers, 5 October 2020 (SPS) - The question of Western Sahara is back on agenda in October at the UN Security Council as the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is to be renewed following the consultations scheduled for October 14, according to UN body's meetings timetable.
The mandate of MINURSO, to expire on October 31, will be renewed, at a meeting to be preceded by a report presented by the special representative for Western Sahara, Colin Stewart.
The consultations come while the UN secretary-general has not yet appointed a new personal envoy since former German President Horst Köhler gave up his mediation mission in May 2019.
According to sources close to the Security Council, several members are "frustrated" by the slow pace of the process for the appointment of a new envoy and by the "concomitant" lack of political progress, concerned that nothing has happened for more than a year.
In the coming days, the Security Council members may focus on the continued lack of a personal envoy and, in turn, the lack of any political progress on one of the Council's oldest issues.
MINURSO was created in 1991 with the main aim of facilitating a referendum for the self-determination of Western Sahara people.
Today, its main tasks are to monitor a ceasefire. (SPS)
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