From postponement to postponement, the consultations on the Sahara at the UN Security Council are blocked at the level of preliminary discussions. Even the report that the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, was supposed to present this Friday to the fifteen members of the Security Council, takes time before being published after being leaked out from the inside.  The consultations which were planned for this Friday, were postponed to Monday 18th April, as indicated by Colombia ensuring the presidency of the Security Council for the month of April, in a note addressed to journalists.
The meeting of the UN Security Council about the MINURSO technical aspects, which was programmed for Tuesday 12th April, was also postponed with one day, because of the delay in the publishing of the Ban Ki-Moon report.
The draft resolution concerning the renewal of the MINURSO mandate expiring end of April is on its side subject to hard diplomatic negotiations behind the UN scenes. While the Security Council permanent members tend rather towards adopting the project in its former version, the Algerian diplomacy which acts as spokesman of the Polisario separatists and has its heart set on defending them, has used great means to achieve, through its lobbying, the adoption of a project to set up a monitoring mechanism for human rights in the Southern provinces of Morocco, while excluding Tindouf camps.

This pitched battle has led, last Thursday, a US senior authorized executive at the UN, to state that the renewal of the MINURSO mandate is one of “the most difficult and much debated issues”.
The renewal of the MINURSO mandate, has he supported, « is one of the most difficult and much debated issues. It is complicated and tedious because of the difference of opinions at the Council ».
On his side, the deputy spokesman of the UN, Farhan haq has assured the journalists questioning him that he knows about “the countries trying to speak with the UN Secretariat to influence the writing of a report or a subject in a way or another. But, at the last level, the Secretariat makes its own assessment and writes its own language”.
The negotiations at the UN come to confirm once more, that the Western Sahara conflict has two protagonists, Morocco aspiring to complete its territorial integrity and Algeria looking for a way to weaken its neighbour so as to impose its leadership on the region and in all the African Continent.