The UN Security Council on Tuesday renewed a UN peace mission in the disputed Western Sahara and for the first time mentioned the need to improve human rights in the Moroccan-occupied territory.

A council resolution calls on Morocco, which took over the phosphate-rich desert territory in 1976, and the Polisario Front separatists to step up efforts to end Africa's oldest remaining colonial dispute.

The annual resolution to renew the mandate of the UN mission, MINURSO, stressed the importance of "improving the human rights situation" in Western Sahara, which is about the size of Britain but has a population of just 500,000, and in Polisario-run refugee camps at Tindouf in Algeria.

Twenty years after the creation of MINURSO, the council called on the Moroccan government and Polisario Front to "demonstrate further political will" to find a solution.

Ten rounds of UN-brokered informal talks have been held since April 2007, but neither side has moved to end the deadlock in that time, diplomats said.

Morocco took over Western Sahara after a Spanish withdrawal in the 1970s. It has rejected UN demands for a self-determination vote, insisting that it will only allow greater autonomy.

South Africa had led African demands for MINURSO to have a human rights mandate as other peacekeeping missions do.

"Uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa are an indication that the status quo of people whose human rights are denied cannot be everlasting," South Africa's UN ambassador Baso Sangqu told the council.

Highlighting the speed with which the Security Council acted on Libya and Ivory Coast, Sangqu called the slow pace on Western Sahara "a double standard which creates an impression that the Security Council does not care about the human rights of the people of the Western Sahara."

Nigeria, another of the three African members of the council, demanded a greater involvement of African Union countries in the solution.

Morocco is traditionally defended by France, one of the five permanent members of the council which can veto any resolution.

Morocco has said human rights concerns can be dealt with by a new council set up by King Mohamed V. It has also agreed to let UN human rights rapporteurs go to Western Sahara.

France has argued that the new Moroccan measures must be given a chance. "There is a new political context," said France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud.

"The Security Council wants to welcome and encourage these substantial new Moroccan measures" which Araud said would benefit the people of Western Sahara.

Rights groups have criticized France's defense of Morocco while talking out strongly on human rights in Libya and other cases. Human Rights Watch's UN director Philippe Boloppion called the new Moroccan measures "baby steps."

tw/rl