The Polisario Front announced on Wednesday, August 6, that its so-called «Foreign Minister», Mohamed Yeslem Beissat, met on Tuesday in London with Hamish Falconer, the British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the Front's news agency, the «two parties discussed recent developments in the UN-led peace process concerning Western Sahara. The conversation also addressed the constructive role the United Kingdom could play in supporting the efforts of the UN Secretary-General's Personal Envoy, Staffan de Mistura, to advance the peace process». «The Sahrawi side expressed hope that the United Kingdom would use its influence constructively to push the UN-led peace process forward and play an active role in promoting peace, reconstruction, and sustainable development in Western Sahara during the post-conflict phase», the same source added. This meeting follows a series of recent contacts between British and Algerian officials. On August 1, in Algiers, the new president of the upper house of Parliament, Azzouz Nasri, met with UK ambassador James Robert Stephen Downer. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune also received the British diplomat on June 11. It's worth noting that UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, during a visit to Rabat on June 1, reaffirmed his country's support for Morocco's autonomy plan for Western Sahara, an endorsement that King Mohammed VI welcomed in his Throne Day speech on July 29. So far, the British government under Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has not issued any official statement regarding the meeting with the Polisario delegation in London.
