The UN Security Council has extended the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission for a referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara (MINURSO) for another year.
The 15-member Security Council called on Friday on the parties to the conflict in Western Sahara - Morocco and Frente Polisario - to "continue to show political will and work in an atmosphere propitious for dialogue in order to enter into a more intensive and substantive phase of negotiations."
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has recently welcomed both parties' commitment to further negotiations and their willingness to engage in the preparatory informal format.
Western Sahara, a territory on the north-west coast of Africa bordered by Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria, was administered by Spain until 1976.
Both Morocco and Mauritania affirmed their claim to the territory, but the local Frente Popular para la Liberacion de Saguia el-Hamra y de Rio de Oro (Frente Polisario) opposed the claim and fighting broke out between Morocco and the Frente Polisario shortly after.
Morocco has since presented a plan for autonomy while the position of the Frente Polisario is that the territory's final status should be decided in a referendum on self-determination that includes independence as an option.
MINURSO was set up in 1991 to monitor the ceasefire reached in September of that year.
The mission comprises over 300 military, police and civilian personnel from 29 countries, including a group of military observers from Russia, and 157 local civilian staff.
UNITED NATIONS, May 1 (RIA Novosti)
