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THERE IS a humanitarian, economic, political and security price-tag attached to the decades-long dispute over Western Sahara which the international community cannot afford to ignore, Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin told a conference in Cork yesterday.

Mr Martin was invited by Ethical Development Action to address a conference the group had organised to focus on the long-running conflict. A mainly desert territory in northwest Africa, Western Sahara is the subject of a bitter territorial dispute between Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front. Mr Martin said it was regrettable the situation was considered a “frozen” conflict.