UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon seemed as if he were announcing that the Sahara issue is his issue, through which he wages the battle of enshrining legitimacy. Amid the prevailing tensions, he was aware that genuine dangers threaten the future of the negotiations. He thus called for resuming the fifth round as soon as possible. Thanks to his broad diplomatic experience and his experience in dealing with hot conflicts, Ban did not want to call for unofficial negotiations, leaving this issue to his personal envoy Christopher Ross. He rather announced that he clings to the choice of negotiations in a revised version, one that does not cancel the four previous rounds, and is not necessarily an extension of them through the path that led to a crisis. The purpose of difficulties, whether real or fabricated, is to maintain the efforts and crises. This either means that the parties are unwilling to engage in essential negotiations at the present time, or that they use them as a pretext to gain time while awaiting something undetermined. In both cases, it is out of the question for ambiguous facts to lead to a final and permanent solution. I wish the United Nations were the African Unity Organization. Within the latter's experience in dealing with the Sahara dossier since 1976, it ratified the formation of a wise committee to sponsor the self-determination referendum. While the debate was still raging over the structure of the questions raised in the referendum, an illegal decision was made to annex the so-called "Sahara Republic" to the continental organization, which undermined all the efforts, and the dossier was transferred to the United Nations under the pretext that recognizing any entity should not preempt the results of the determination of the disputed region's fate. Today, some sides are pushing the United Nations to abandon the management of a conflict that has been prolonged to no avail. On the one hand, the formula of the political solution was considered a duplication of the previous referendum plan, which did not please some parties. On the other hand, the reality on the ground does not offer equal pressuring cards for this or that side. The relevant UN Security Council resolutions have repeatedly mentioned the phrase "neighboring countries", which were asked to encourage the two main parties, Morocco and the Polisario Front, to proceed with the realistic negotiations with goodwill and without preconditions. This call brings hope through the division of the concerned citizens in Algeria and Mauritania, with differences in the positions of Nouakchott and Algeria, in addition to the fact that the approach of Envoy Ross lured the Maghreb countries into contributing to increasing the chances of a settlement. The vision of the United Nations differs essentially from the one adopted by the African Unity Organization before it later became the African Union. This is because the positions on the African arena were influenced to a large extent by the repercussions of the cold war. One of the paradoxes was the tendency to suspend the recognition of many African countries of "the Sahara Republic", as it was consolidated by other countries. But the Arab Maghreb region in the 1970s and 1980s is not the same one that exists today. Libyan President Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi rushed to congratulate Moroccan King Mohammad VI on the anniversary of the "Green March" last month. These are not mere details, but rather indications to the effect that the concerns of the Maghreb region have dramatically changed. King Mohammad VI threatens again that the option of autonomy tends to revitalize the Maghreb Union, warning against the dangers of Balkanization and the absence of stability in the countries of the coast, south the Sahara. This reflects the nature of these security and strategic concerns. Ban Ki-moon alone wagers on achieving progress in the pending negotiations for an essential reason: He has realized that the option itself is targeted, and that the rest is nothing but spices that increase or reduce the flavor of the solution put forth on the table of negotiations.
