On Sunday, September 21, the UN Secretary-General's Personal Envoy for Western Sahara met with Polisario leader Brahim Ghali in the Tindouf camps. Ghali used the meeting to reiterate his movement's original demands. «The Polisario Front will continue to work with the United Nations and the African Union to achieve a peaceful, just, and lasting solution to the decolonization of Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa, in line with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and its resolutions, the objectives and principles of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, and relevant rules of international law», the Polisario press agency reported. Ghali also told Staffan de Mistura that «the only path to a peaceful, just, and lasting solution lies in the free and democratic exercise by the Sahrawi people of their inalienable, non-negotiable, and imprescriptible right to self-determination and independence». He rejected any solution «that does not respect the will of the Sahrawi people». The Polisario's statement after the meeting closely echoed that of Algerian diplomacy on September 16, when Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf met with de Mistura. At that time, Algeria reaffirmed its commitment to «defending the international doctrine of decolonization, praising the role of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) as a key element of the international community's engagement with decolonization in Western Sahara, the last colony of the African continent», according to the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In recent weeks, however, the Polisario's permanent secretariat had signaled a slight shift. Following its September 5 meeting, the body reaffirmed the Front's commitment to «work toward a just, peaceful, and mutually acceptable political solution»—without referencing «a self-determination referendum», «the independence of Western Sahara», or the implementation of the 1988 UN–OAU settlement plan. Staffan de Mistura returned to Laayoune later that evening.
