Moroccan King rules out vote on disputed Western Sahara

The King of Morocco has for the first time publicly rejected plans sponsored by the United Nations for a referendum to determine the future of the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

Mohammed VI went on national television to dismiss as "null" a long-awaited plebiscite giving the people of the territory a vote on whether they should win independence or be ruled by Morocco.

In a speech marking the anniversary of the 1975 "green march", when Morocco claimed Western Sahara back from its Spanish colonisers, the King said the referendum plan was "out of date" because it "could not be implemented".

The King claimed there was "growing support of the international community" for an alternative Moroccan plan to grant the phosphate-rich territory autonomy, but under Moroccan sovereignty.

His statement crushes the hopes of Sahrawis who want a vote, and raises afresh the prospect of a return to war between Morocco and Algerian-backed Polisario Front rebels.

In 1975 the rebels mounted a 15 year guerrilla conflict for Western Sahara independence. Any return to hostilities could bring Morocco into conflict with Algeria, where the Polisario leadership, and their desert camps housing more than 150,000 Sahrawi refugees, are based. Morocco and the Polisario have observed a ceasefire during 10 years of abortive UN efforts to organise a referendum. But amid signs that the US and Britain are ready to circumvent a referendum and back Moroccan sovereignty, the Polisario have recently started to talk of a return to hostilities.

Morocco already has de facto control over most of Western Sahara while the Polisario controls a small strip of "liberated" territory cut off by a massive wall of desert defences erected by the Moroccan military.

UN efforts to stage the long-promised referendum have become bogged down in intractable disputes over who is eligible to vote.

The Moroccan government has recently hinted that it would be prepared to offer Algeria some form of access to the Atlantic coast through Sahrawi territory to transport oil if Algiers renounced its support for the rebels.

Thabo Mbeki, the South African President and chairman of the newly created African Union (AU), indicated this week that he is prepared to mediate. A spokesman said he would seek "an African solution". The AU has already angered Morocco by recognising Western Sahara's claim to nationhood.

But the King's pro-Western stance at a time of threatened war with Iraq, has also convinced Washington, London and to some extent Paris, that the UN should abandon the referendum and promote a settlement that falls short of independence.