Outside View // 1 decade ago
A seismic shift in U.S. North African policy
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to appoint seasoned U.S. diplomat and former U.S. Ambassador to Algeria and Syria Christopher Ross as his personal envoy for Western Sahara. This appointment hopefully will continue the momentum of the current negotiations process to end the three-decades-old conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front, an Algerian-backed rebel movement that has challenged Morocco's historical sovereignty over a Colorado-sized desert territory in North Africa (sometimes known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic).