Progress in Talks on Western Sahara

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III said negotiations he brokered have cleared the way for a U.N.-sponsored referendum that would end the 23-year-old conflict over control of the western Sahara. Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front rebel group fought for 17 years for sovereignty over the 250,000-square-mile expanse of North African desert before agreeing to a U.N. cease-fire in 1991. But progress toward a referendum had stalled until Kofi Annan, the world body’s secretary-general, brought in Baker as a special envoy earlier this year. In talks in Lisbon, London and Houston, Baker got both sides to agree to a process for selecting eligible voters for the referendum, but no election date has been scheduled.