Staffan de Mistura has continued his regional tour. The personal envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Western Sahara arrived in Moscow on Thursday, September 18, where he was received by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin. «The discussions focused on the state and prospects of the peace process in Western Sahara, as well as the UN's role in efforts to revive the political process to achieve a just, durable, and mutually acceptable solution», the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by local media. «The settlement of this conflict, which has lasted nearly half a century and is a legacy of colonialism, would contribute to stabilizing the situation in North Africa and the Sahara-Sahel region», the same source noted. Moscow also stressed the need to provide MINURSO with the human and material resources required to «continue stabilizing the situation in the region». Russia further underlined «the necessity of a definitive resolution of the Western Sahara issue, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and based on the relevant Security Council resolutions». Moscow will assume the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council in October. De Mistura had met with Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf a day earlier, on Wednesday, in Algiers.
