More Sahara talks with Morocco in August-UN

UNITED NATIONS, June 20 (Reuters) Morocco and Western Sahara's Polisario Front independence movement, who held ground-breaking talks this week, will hold further negotiations in August, the United Nations said.

This week's two-day UN-mediated talks at Manhasset, New York, dealt with the future of Western Sahara, a territory of 260,000 people in northwestern Africa annexed by Morocco after Spain withdrew from its former colony in 1975.

''The parties have agreed that the process of negotiations will continue in Manhasset the second week of August, '' said a UN statement issued by Peter van Walsum, the special envoy for the Western Sahara at the end of the talks.

Representatives of neighboring Algeria and Mauritania also participated in the opening and closing sessions of the talks at the Greentree Estate in Manhasset on Long Island.

In a statement, Polisario delegation leader Mahfoud Ali Beiba said his group ''will participate in future negotiations that are expected to take place during the second week of August 2007 in Manhasset.'' ''The Frente Polisaro is hopeful that our Moroccan brothers face up to history together with us by seizing on this historic window of opportunity that has opened for us,'' Beiba said yesterday.

The meetings, which began on Monday, were the first time the sides have met in seven years, and UN officials have portrayed it as the best chance so far to end a 32-year-old conflict seen by Washington as hampering its fight against terrorism.

'LONG PROCESS' The United Nations brokered an end to a low-level guerrilla war in 1991 but no political solution has followed.

Western Sahara, on Africa's northwest coast, has extensive phosphate deposits, rich fisheries and, potentially, oil.

There has been little sign so far of a breakthrough on the fundamental issue of whether Sahara is to become fully independent, as Polisario wants, or an autonomous region of Morocco, as Rabat proposes.

''I think we are at the very beginning of a long process,'' UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said. ''As you can imagine, it's not going to be an easy process.'' Polisario is pushing for a referendum among Sahrawis that would offer a choice of full independence, autonomy or complete integration into Morocco.

Morocco's chief delegate, Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa, insisted Rabat's autonomy plan was flexible.

''(It) is not a static, non-negotiable proposal. It is rather an open initiative which can be developed and enriched within the framework of consensual consultations,'' Morocco's state news agency MAP quoted him as saying.

No country recognizes Morocco's rule over Western Sahara but the United States is now impatient for a deal it hopes will bring more cooperation between North African states and help combat terrorist groups in the regions bordering the Sahara.

REUTERS KN SBA BST0525