...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years...said he hopes to maintain the political "momentum" to seek a solution to the Western Sahara conflict, despite having not had a special envoy to the region for the past four months.
In a report Wednesday, Guterres praised the progress made by the UN’s former envoy, Horst Kohler, who left the position in May for health reasons.
He "was able to reinstate a much-needed dynamic and momentum to the political process, including through the round-table process he launched which brought together Morocco, Frente Polisario, Algeria, and Mauritania," Guterres said in the document delivered to the Security Council.
Following a long period of inaction, two round tables in Switzerland
...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell...
in December and March brought together the various parties, though without reaching any significant breakthroughs.
"It is therefore essential that the continuity and momentum in this political process are not lost," Guterres said, despite the fact that Kohler so far does not have a successor.
Many diplomats have lamented the difficulty in finding the right fit for his replacement ‐ someone who is willing to work on what sometimes seems like an endless dilemma.
Morocco annexed the former Spanish colony and fought a war with the Algeria-backed Polisario Front from 1975 to 1991 when a ceasefire deal was agreed.
A UN mission was deployed to monitor the truce and to prepare a referendum on Western Sahara’s independence from Morocco, but it never materialized.
The UN maintains a peacekeeping force of 240 Blue Helmets (MINURSO) charged with monitoring the ceasefire.
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