Is the Polisario Front going to attend the 5th AU-EU summit ? The answer is still unclear for the moment as the separatist movement announced on Friday that it was invited by the Chairperson of the African Union Commission at a time when Ivory Coast, the hosting country, refuses to do so. Details. The Polisario Front said on Friday, 27th of October, it received an invitation from «the Chairperson of the African Commission's office» to take part in the 5th African Union-European Union summit scheduled for the 29th and 30th of November in Abidjan. The communique issued by the «Ministry of Information», and reported by the SPS claimed that the step was taken in «accordance with the decision of the Executive Board (Council of Foreign Ministers) during its special meeting in Addis Ababa on 16 October». However, the press release must be taken with a grain of salt, as it is Ivory Cost that has the exclusive right of sending invitations to member states and not the Chadian Chairperson, Moussa Faki Mahamat. The World Festival of Youth and Students in Russia The example of Russia's rejection of granting visas to a Polisario youth delegation to attend the World Festival of Youth and Students, which took place between the 14th and 22nd of October in Sochi, is an eloquent one. Despite the fact that the front was invited by the organizers of the festival, it was blocked from being part of it. Moreover, at its meeting on the 16 of October in Addis Ababa, the AU Executive Committee had given Côte d'Ivoire a deadline -expired on 27 October- to invite all members of the AU without exception to the AU-EU summit. Otherwise the meeting would be relocated to the headquarters of the continental organization in Ethiopia as the AU executive commission threatened. This was discussed on Thursday, October 26 in Conakry, by the Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara and his Guinean counterpart Alpha Condé, who is currently the president of the meeting of the committee of African Heads of State. Abidjan refuses to invite the «SADR» while Algeria and South Africa require the Front's participation.
