1972 in the so-called liberated zones – areas which PAIGC controlled with little Portuguese interference. During the Boé congress, the Assembly also nominated Luís Cabral as president at the head of a fifteen-member council of state. Spínola and other Portuguese commanders told the press that the liberated zones were a myth, that the entire territory remained under the control of Portuguese forces, and that the declaration of independence had been issued outside Guinea. Nonetheless, before the end of the year, the new Republic of Guinea-Bissau had been recognised by at least 57 states. On 2 November, the UN General Assembly passed, by 93 votes to seven, a resolution which welcomed "the recent accession to independence of the people of Guinea-Bissau", recognised the state's sovereignty, condemned Portugal's continued presence in parts of the territory, and called on the UN Security Council to take "all effective steps to restore the territorial integrity of the Republic". Algiers accord: August 1974 Evidence published by the Portuguese newspaper Expresso in 1994 suggests that the Portuguese regime held secret diplomatic talks with PAIGC in London on 26–27 March 1974. However, diplomatic progress accelerated the following month, when the regime was overthrown in a military coup during the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974. The war in Guinea-Bissau has been viewed as a factor which contributed to the coup and revolution: its status as "the most intense, destructive, and materially pointless" of the three Portuguese wars in Africa rendered it an embarrassment to the outgoing regime; and the coup was organised by the left-wing Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das Forças Armadas), the core of which "took shape" first among military officers in Guinea-Bissau. Spínola, who had been at the head of the Portuguese effort in Guinea-Bissau, himself became president of the new National Salvation Junta. In May, the new Portuguese government agreed to negotiate with PAIGC. With the assistance of the British Foreign Office, meetings between PAIGC and the new Portuguese regime were held on 25–31 May 1974 at the Hyde Park Hotel in London. The talks reached deadlock over sequencing, as PAIGC insisted that Portugal should recognise the 1973 declaration of independence as a precondition for the ceasefire sought by Portugal. However, the parties reconvened later in Algiers, Algeria, which PAIGC regarded as a more "comfortable" environment than London. Meanwhile, Portuguese troops in the field in Guinea-Bissau established informal contacts with PAIGC troops; and, on 29