TRIPOLI, 25 May 2005 — A key regional summit of the five-nation Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) has been postponed indefinitely because of a three-decade dispute between regional heavyweights Morocco and Algeria, officials said yesterday. “After consultations and contacts between the foreign ministers of the five UMA member countries, it has been decided to postpone the summit indefinitely,” the Libyan Foreign Ministry said, without giving the reason.
It said the delay of the summit which was to be hosted by Tripoli would enable Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to prepare for holding the meeting of heads of state “in a favorable climate”. The row between neighbors Morocco and Algeria over the Western Sahara has long paralyzed the grouping, which was formed in 1989 but has not met for more than a decade.
“The summit has been postponed until ideas mature and a meeting without problems can be held,” Mauritanian Foreign Minister Mohamed Vall Ould Bellal told journalists. The summit of the UMA — grouping Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia —was to have taken place on Thursday.
The cancellation followed an announcement by Morocco’s King Mohammed on Monday that he would not attend the first summit to be held since 1994 because of the Western Sahara dispute.
Algeria and Morocco have bickered for decades over large phosphate-rich desert, which Morocco annexed after colonial power Spain pulled out in 1975. The breakaway Algerian-backed Polisario Front took up arms to fight for independence the following year.
The United Nations brokered a 1991 cease-fire, but there has been no progress on a UN plan to give the territory autonomy during a five-year transition period before a referendum on independence.
Libya’s official news agency JANA said Monday that Qaddafi had received Moroccan Foreign Minister Mohammad Ben Issa, but gave no further details.
