The Algerian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Attaf, is on a working visit to Austria, with the Sahara issue high on his agenda. The head of diplomacy met yesterday in Vienna with the president of the «Austrian-Saharan Friendship Group», Karen Schella. Schella informed Attaf of the «actions carried out and the services» provided by her NGO «in various fields in favor of the Sahrawi people and their just cause», according to a press release from the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The two parties evidently discussed «the latest developments» in this file «at the diplomatic level» and the prospects for «continuing and redoubling efforts to strengthen international support for the Sahrawi people in order to enable them to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination, as stipulated in the relevant UN and African Union resolutions», the press release added. For the record, the Austrian government considers the Moroccan autonomy plan for the Sahara as a «serious and credible contribution» to the UN-led political process. This position was expressed on February 28 in Rabat by the Austrian Federal Chancellor, Karl Nehammer. The meeting between Ahmed Attaf and the president of the «Austrian-Saharan Friendship Group» comes ten days after the Algerian ambassador accredited in Buenos Aires presided over the ceremony to create a Polisario support network in Argentina.
