MADRID - Political parties have urged Spanish Prime Minister Jose-Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to clarify Madrid's position on the status of the territory of Western Sahara, media reports said Friday.
In a midweek visit to Algiers, Zapatero, who took office in March, said he believed the United Nations should play a decisive role in resolving a dispute between Algiers and Rabat over the status of the territory, which Morocco annexed completely four years after Spanish settlers left in 1975.
Zapatero's conservative predecessor Jose Maria Aznar backed the UN's "Baker Plan" - named after the UN secretary general's former special envoy to the Western Sahara James Baker - to resolve the conflict, but the new socialist administration has rarely mentioned it.
The Baker plan was drawn up before the onetime US secretary of state quit this year, unable to persuade the independence movement in the former Spanish colony, the Polisario Front, and Morocco to agree on its implementation.
The aim has been to bestow immediate autonomy on the Western Sahara during a five-year transition period to prepare for a referendum on independence.
In Algiers, Zapatero said he did not want to be bound by a plan "be it called Baker or not. It will be effective only if it meets with the agreement of all parties involved."
Gustavo de Aristegui, foreign policy spokesman of the main opposition party which Aznar led until Zapatero's election victory, on Thursday called on the government to clarify its position.
In addition, the pro-communist United Left said it would demand a parliamentary debate in the belief that Zapatero "is forgetting the rights of the Sahrawis".
El Mundo daily Friday accused Zapatero of having "effected a 180-degree turn in Spanish policy while in Algiers" with regard to the issue, which sections of the media see as liable to fuel Sahrawi and Algerian fears of a Madrid-Paris axis bolstering Moroccan claims to continued sovereignty.
The ABC daily quoted Sahrawi Minister for Europe Mohamed Sidati as saying that "Spain today does not have an independent foreign policy but a policy bound by what France does. We are back to a Paris-Madrid-Rabat axis."
ABC further quoted Sidati as saying Spain was now flowing with a "current which advocates strong relations with Morocco."
Polisario has set up its own government for the Western Sahara, which it calls the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, a territory recognised by many nations within the African Union, but not by the United Nations.
Rabat has rejected any idea of a referendum. It proposes "widespread definitive autonomy", but wants to retain Moroccan sovereignty which it sees as "non-negotiable."
Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos said Friday that Spain would "not rule out the idea of a referendum" and would "not betray the legitimate rights of the Sahrawi people."
On Tuesday, also in Algiers, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier urged Algeria and Morocco to get back to the negotiating table and called for dialogue.
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