UNITED NATIONS - Morocco and the Polisario independence movement ended a fourth round of talks on the Western Sahara in suburban New York Tuesday and agreed to meet again, the UN mediator said.
"In concluding this fourth round of talks, the parties reiterated their commitment to continue the negotiations at Manhasset at a date to be determined by common agreement," UN special envoy for Western Sahara Peter van Walsum said in a statement.
Van Walsum, who mediated the two-day talks in the secluded Greentree estate in the New York suburb of Manhasset, said they focused on implementation of UN Security Council resolutions urging talks "without preconditions and in good faith" to achieve "a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution."
He said the parties also zeroed in on issues such as administration, justice and resources in the former Spanish colony which Morocco annexed in 1975.
"Among a number of proposals I made to expand confidence-building measures, there was agreement among the parties to explore the establishment of family visits by land, which would be in addition to the existing program by air," van Walsum said.
The UN-mediated talks, which followed earlier rounds in January as well as in June and August last year, brought together Morocco, the Algiers-backed Polisario as well as representatives of neighboring Algeria and Mauritania.
Morocco has offered broad autonomy to Western Sahara, a mainly desert territory in north-west Africa, but the Polisario Front is seeking a referendum with the option of full independence.
Ahead of the fourth round of talks, Moroccan Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa made it clear that Rabat "only accepts autonomy and nothing but autonomy" for the Western Sahara.
He said Sunday that Morocco would hold out its hand to the Polisario, but only within the "realistic" framework of proposed autonomy.
Late last month, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said "self-determination" must lie at the heart of the March round of Western Sahara talks.
"Algeria believes strongly in a strict implementation of United Nations decolonization doctrine, and supports the efforts of the international community to put these principles into practice in Western Sahara," he added.
Morocco annexed the phosphate-rich territory in the 1970s following the withdrawal of colonial power Spain, sparking a war with the Polisario.
The two sides agreed a ceasefire in 1991, but a promised self-determination referendum never materialized.
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