The UN Security Council ignores the agitations following the opening of the General Consulates in the Moroccan Sahara

Despite of the agitations of two countries supporting “polisario”, the UN Security Council reiterated the parameters it clearly defined in its resolutions 2414, 2440, 2468, and 2494 to reach a final political solution to the regional dispute over the Moroccan Sahara during its briefing on the issue of Moroccan Sahara held, on Thursday, April 9, 2020 in accordance with resolution 2494, adopted on October 30, 2019.

This political solution can only be realistic, pragmatic, lasting, and based on compromise, parameters already defined in the last resolutions and which unequivocally refer to the Moroccan Initiative for Autonomy, whose serious and credible character has been reaffirmed by the Council since 2007.

To reach this solution, the Security Council considered during its briefing that there is no alternative to the Round Table process, which brought together in December 2018 and in March 2019 in Geneva Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, and the “polisario”, at the end of which the participants agreed to meet again in the same format.

Therefore, and in accordance with Security Council resolution 2494, all parties involved in the Sahara conflict are called upon to strengthen their commitment to the Round Table process, in a constructive manner and by demonstrating realism and compromise, until its outcome.

This reaffirmed position of the Security Council expresses the pledge to go forward in the roundtable process and ignoring ideological dogmatism from a bygone era.

Therefore, the UN executive organ remaining firmly committed to the pathway it had marked to achieve a realistic, practicable, and enduring political solution that rests on compromise to the regional dispute on the Moroccan Sahara.

Whereas the Security Council clearly circumscribes in its resolutions the mandate of MINURSO to the observation of the respect of the Military Agreements, two lonely countries supporting “polisario” are carrying on that the mandate of MINURSO is to organize a referendum, an option which the Security Council has been definitely discarding since 2001.

Even worse, the two countries tried to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic in their attacks against Morocco, alleging “responsibilities” attached to a so-called status of the Kingdom towards the Moroccan Sahara that belongs only in their imaginations.

The attempt to manipulate the human tragedy that COVID-19 is inflicting on the whole world is very surprising while all the international Community is focusing their attention on domestic response efforts and expressing solidarity to curb the spread of the pandemic.

Contrary to their unusual wishes, the Security Council has ignored the agitations of the lonely two states over the opening of the General Consulates in the Moroccan Sahara by many countries, thus reaffirming that these are acts of sovereignty in accordance with international law and strictly within the framework of bilateral relations between Morocco and its African partners.

It should be noted that in addition to the ten African countries which have opened General Consulates in the Moroccan Sahara, countries from other regions of the world have announced their intention to open consular posts in the Moroccan Sahara region soon.

• Gambia had opened a Consulate General in Moroccan Sahara Region
• COVID-19 pandemic affecting socioeconomic condition of “almost all” African countries

Source: Moroccan Press Agency