Polisario says risk of war if Western Sahara talks fail

By William Maclean

ALGIERS (Reuters) - War may break out again in Western Sahara after an uneasy 16-year peace if U.N.-sponsored talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front independence movement fail, Polisario said on Friday.

A third round of talks to resolve Africa's longest-running territorial dispute are set for January 7-9 in Manhasset, New York.

Polisario said Morocco had a "precious opportunity for a just and definitive peace" in the desert territory of 260,000 that contains phosphates and rich fishing banks and may have offshore oil.

"The Moroccan government will assume the full consequences that would result from the failure of the negotiating process and notably the resumption of military hostilities", Algeria's official news agency APS quoted a Polisario statement as saying.

The declaration came at the end of Polisario's congress in the desert outpost of Tifariti, held every three to four years.

Peacekeepers have watched over Western Sahara since 1991 when the United Nations brokered a ceasefire to end a guerrilla war between Polisario and Morocco, which annexed the northwest African territory in 1975.

Morocco has poured people and money into the area it controls, bordered to the west by the Atlantic and to the east by a defensive sand wall guarded by tens of thousands of its troops and reinforced by landmines.

The ceasefire terms included holding a referendum to let the inhabitants decide their future but it never took place. Rabat now rules out such a vote and has French support for its proposal for only limited self-rule.