/ 17 March 1999

UN-MOROCCO AGREEMENT

MOROCCO and the United Nations have signed a military agreement to identify and destroy mines and unexploded bombs still buried in the Western Sahara, UN officials based in Al Ayun said Tuesday. The agreement does not apply to minefields bordering the fortifications built by Morocco in the barren eastern part of the territory.Minurso, the UN mission charged with organising a referendum on self-determination in the Western Sahara, said the agreement is aimed at “reducing the risk” from mines and other devices left over from the conflict between Moroccan troops and the pro-independence Polisario Front which never recognised Morocco’s 1975 annexation of the former Spanish colony.