The slowness and absence of progress within the informal negotiations on the Sahara conflict, which are at their 8th round, taking place from 19 to 21st July in Manhasset, next to New York, are deplored everywhere. In France, the leader class, while believing that this blockade “is not beneficial for  anyone”, has nevertheless greeted the continuing of negotiations to reach “a realistic political solution, sustainable and mutually accepted by all the parties”, has declared last Friday, the spokesman of Quai d’Orsay Bernard Valero. The reaction of the French diplomacy comes following the release made on Friday by the personal envoy of the UN Secretary General to the Sahara.
The latter has specified  as in the previous rounds, that « at the end of the meeting, each party has continued to reject the proposal of the other as a unique base for the coming negotiations, while reiterating their will to work together so as to find a political solution in conformity with the pertinent resolutions of the UN Security Council”. For Paris, “the persistence of the blockade does not serve anybody’s interest”, has stated Valero, reminding that this new session of informal dialogue on the Sahara is in keeping with the “long and exacting process of negotiations led by the personal envoy of the UN Secretary General”.

The spokesman of Quai d’Orsay has, nevertheless, congratulated the parties for having agreed to “continue this dialogue in the coming September”, after the autumn session of the UN General Assembly. Waiting that concrete measures come out of these discussions, thousands of Moroccan Sahrawis from the Southern provinces of the Kingdom continue living in Tindouf camps, in a total precariousness and in an almost isolation from the rest of the world.