The UN Secretary-General's personal envoy for Western Sahara is pressing ahead with his consultations. On Thursday, September 25, Staffan de Mistura met with Algeria's Foreign Minister, Ahmed Attaf, in New York. The Algerian diplomatic corps characterized these discussions, held on the sidelines of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, as a «continuation» of the meeting on September 16 in Algiers, «in preparation» for the upcoming October session of the Security Council, which will address the Western Sahara issue. During Thursday's meeting, Ahmed Attaf «reaffirmed Algeria's firm stance in support of the United Nations' efforts to find a just, lasting, and definitive solution to the Western Sahara issue, ensuring the Sahrawi people's inalienable and imprescriptible right to self-determination». Notably, the Algerian diplomatic statement omitted any reference to «organizing a referendum» or the «decolonization» of the territory, topics that Ahmed Attaf had highlighted during the September 16 meeting with De Mistura. Back then, the Foreign Minister had underscored «Algeria's 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 crucial element of the international commitment to decolonization in Western Sahara, described as the last colony on the African continent.
