United Nations Personal Envoy for the Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, arrived in the Algerian capital on Monday for talks with Algerian officials as part of a new regional tour involving the parties concerned with the Sahara issue ahead of his next briefing to the United Nations in the coming months.
According to Algeria’s Foreign Ministry, Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf received De Mistura during a visit that forms part of the envoy’s latest consultations across the region. The ministry said the meeting reviewed efforts aimed at advancing the political process and finding a solution to the Sahara dispute.
In its statement, Algeria reiterated its support for the efforts of the UN Secretary-General and his Personal Envoy, stressing what it described as the importance of negotiations without preconditions and the need to create favorable conditions for direct talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front.
The statement once again reflected Algeria’s longstanding position that it is not a party to the conflict, despite the fact that De Mistura’s stop in Algiers forms an essential part of his consultations with the actors involved in the dispute.
For Morocco, Algeria remains a central stakeholder in the Sahara issue, given its political, diplomatic, and logistical support for the Polisario Front. The UN has also repeatedly included Algeria in its political process and roundtable discussions concerning the conflict, alongside Morocco, Mauritania, and the Polisario Front.
De Mistura’s visit to Algiers highlights Algeria’s importance in efforts to reach a political settlement to a dispute that has lasted for five decades. The envoy’s consultations with Algerian officials come as part of a broader regional effort to assess the positions of the various parties before reporting back to the UN Security Council.
The Sahara issue has also had a significant impact on regional diplomacy. Relations between Morocco and Algeria remain severed, while Algeria has previously experienced diplomatic tensions with countries such as France and Spain over their positions on the Sahara question, underscoring the strategic importance Algiers attaches to the issue.
The UN envoy is expected to travel to Morocco later in his regional tour, where he will meet senior Moroccan officials, including Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, to discuss recent developments ahead of the next Security Council discussions on the file, expected in October.
The visit follows De Mistura’s recent trip to the Tindouf camps, where he met leaders of the Polisario Front and heard their views on the political process. He is also expected to visit Mauritania as part of his ongoing consultations.
The diplomatic tour comes at a time when the Sahara issue continues to undergo significant developments, with growing international support for Morocco’s autonomy initiative. Rabat maintains that the proposal represents the most credible, realistic, and practical basis for a lasting resolution to the conflict, a position that has gained increasing backing from a number of international partners in recent years.
