AA/Tunis
The Security Council adopted, on Thursday, by 12 votes in favor and 2 abstentions (Russian Federation, Mozambique), resolution 2756 (2024) extending the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) until October 31, 2025, the UN said in a press release published on its website.
Algeria did not participate in the vote, after the majority of Council members abstained on two draft amendments that it had proposed, specifies the same source.
Through this text, presented by the United States, the Council once again underlines the need to achieve a “realistic, pragmatic, lasting and mutually acceptable” political solution to the question of Western Sahara. He fully supports the action taken by the Secretary-General and his personal envoy to facilitate negotiations to this end, underlines the UN.
For France, whose President Emmanuel Macron clearly indicated in July his support for the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco, “the present and future of Western Sahara are part of the framework of autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty” . This is the only just political solution, assured the delegate, recalls the same source.
The question of Western Sahara is “a question of decolonization which is lost in the desert with the Sahrawi people who suffer from a long-term refugee situation”, ruled the delegate of Algeria, deploring the excesses within the Council continues the press release. “My country will endeavor to denounce all transactions relating to the sovereignty of Western Sahara carried out against strategic, economic or commercial advantages,” he warned.
The conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front over the Sahara region has lasted since 1975. It began after the Spanish occupation ended its presence in the region, before turning into an armed confrontation that lasted until in 1991, and ended with the signing of a ceasefire agreement which considered Guerguerat a demilitarized zone.
Morocco insists on its right to the Sahara region and proposes extended autonomy under its sovereignty, while the Polisario Front requests a referendum in application of Resolution 690 of the United Nations Security Council to determine the fate of the region, position supported by Algeria, which is hosting refugees from the disputed region.
Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara was officially recognized in 2020 by the United States and in 2023 by Spain.
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