12 April 2009

Morocco blamed Algeria on Saturday for a "serious and blatant" violation by the Polisario Front of an 18-year-long ceasefire in the disputed Western Sahara and urged the United Nations to intervene.

Some 1,400 supporters of the Algeria-backed Polisario Front independence movement, including foreigners, crossed the border from Algeria into a closed military zone where they uprooted barbed wire and fired shots in the air, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It accused Algeria and the Polisario of trying to scuttle efforts to forge a peaceful solution to the conflict before a U.N. Security Council meeting on the dispute later this month.

Rabat and the Polisario Front have often accused one another of breaching the U.N.-supervised military truce. But diplomats believe it is the first time in many years that Rabat has linked Algiers directly to an alleged violation. They feared this would strain links between Algeria and Morocco, both of whose cooperation is seen by Western powers as crucial to the fight against al Qeada in north and sub-Saharan Africa and against illegal migration.

"...this action, which was initiated and carried out from Algerian territory, confirms the direct responsibility of this country in its preparation and implementation," the Moroccan ministry said. "This incident is (in line with) repeated attempts by Algeria and Polisario aimed at scuttling U.N. efforts to relaunch the dynamic of negotiations," it added.

The ministry called on the United Nations to "assume responsibility and take the required actions."

Moroccan 'exaggeration'

Mansour Omar, a representative of the Polisario Front in France, told Al Jazeera that Morocco's claims were overblown.

"A group of people of various nationalities; Sahrawis, Spanish, French and Latin Americans, are used to demonstrating every year in front of the [security] 'belt' set by Morocco in the Western Sahara, not in Moroccan territories," he said.

"It was a peaceful demonstration which they stage every year. What is new is that Morocco may have exaggerated.

"The demonstration was staged in 'the free zone of the Sahrawi Arab republic', not in Morocco," he said.

It is the first time in years that Rabat has linked Algiers directly to an alleged violation of the ceasefire deal between the Polisario Front and Morocco, diplomats say.

While the Moroccan government wants Western Sahara to be an autonomous region of Morocco, Polisario is looking to have a referendum on the territory's independence.