What interpretation should be given to the recent statements by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the Moroccan Sahara? During a press briefing in Moscow on Tuesday, January 14, Sergei Lavrov declared that Russia is helping Morocco find a solution to the Western Sahara issue. He also emphasized that “Morocco is a friendly country” with which Russia has good projects, and that “We know how important this issue is for Morocco.” Lavrov continued by saying that they (Russians) will try to help in every possible way, but the problem can only be resolved on the basis of mutual consent, and not by imposing something on one of the parts.
The head of diplomacy further added that the Security Council decided, around forty years ago, that the problem of Western Sahara must be resolved through the self-determination of the “people of Western Sahara”, before criticizing Donald Trump’s decision to recognize “unilaterally” the Moroccanness of the Sahara. “Resolving such issues unilaterally only sows a storm that will inevitably erupt at some point. Instead, we must seek a mutually acceptable agreement”he estimated.
Reinvesting North Africa after losing ground in the Middle East
Commenting for Hespress Fr on this release by Sergei Lavrov, professor of public law at the faculty of legal and political sciences at Ibn Tofail University, Azzeddine Hannoun, believes that “basically, there is no change in the Russian position on the Sahara question”.
This position, explains the professor of public law, “is defined in opposition to American and Western positions. It is true that the Russian state has not automatically aligned this position with its rivalries with the Western world because of the war in Ukraine and this due to the capacity of Moroccan diplomacy to leave Moroccan-Russian relations to the shelter from the current slump. However, in form, we feel that it is a premeditated exit due to the desire of Russian diplomacy to reinvest the North African region after having lost ground in the Middle East..
The departure of Al Assad, underlines Hanoun, “has weakened this position and the confidence of Russia’s allies in the latter’s support. So Lavrov could want to send positive signals to the Algerian ally about the sustainability of this alliance”.
Furthermore, the expert points out that “it could also be that Russia is in a situation of distrust regarding the Moroccan presence in the Sahel countries and in West Africa, a region very popular with Moscow.. “The recent release of French prisoners thanks to the intervention of Morocco means that our country is becoming a major player that could disrupt Russian designs in the region”maintains Hanoun.
Trump: a disturbing return…
The professor of strategic studies at the National Defense College of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed Badine El Yattioui, affirms, for his part, that Lavrov’s statements are ultimately not surprising. As for their timing, our interlocutor places them in the context of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
“The return of Trump scares the Russians despite everything, even if relations with Biden were execrable. With Trump, there is now the difficulty of having to negotiate an exit from the conflict in Ukraine without having any guarantees on the territorial gains that the Russians could have, who would have to demonstrate this to their public opinion to justify this war, which was expected to last a few years. days at the start and which is almost in its third year”explains El Yattioui, observing that there is in Lavrov’s remarks on the Moroccan Sahara a direct criticism of Trump and therefore the latter’s return “disturbs them much more than we thought, and they will have to find a negotiation strategy which will be quite tight and complicated”.
The other aspect of the Russian MAE’s statements, according to the professor of strategic studies, is due to the fact that he speaks of self-determination, while saying that Morocco is a friendly country, and this can be explained by the fact that Russia lost a lot in the Eastern Mediterranean with the fall of the Syrian regime, while we see that the West is regaining a foothold in this country.
“So ultimately, even if relations were complex with Algeria, which supported the Ukrainian special forces against the Wagners in Mali, and the crisis between Algiers and Bamako in which Moscow took Bamako’s side, it remains no less than the relationship between Algeria and Russia is a historical relationship dating back to the Soviet era. The Algerians are among the main customers of Russian arms. And so, there is always this desire to maintain a form of support for Algeria and perhaps to renegotiate issues with them”notes Mohamed Badine El Yattioui
And to add: “if negotiations fail with the new Syrian government to maintain military bases near Latakia and the naval base in Tartous, we will have to find alternatives, particularly in Libya in Tobruk, and there the Algerians will certainly have a say, even if in Libya interests can be divergent between Algiers and Moscow”.
Finally, there is another element that must also be taken into account, according to the professor of strategic studies, which is due to the fact that on the Russian side, since the impasse in the Ukrainian conflict, there is a certain tendency to reconnect with the vision of the Cold War “East-West”, and as Morocco has received the support of two permanent members of the Security Council who are Western countries, the United States and France, there is this desire to bring this artificial conflict back to where it was at the start. “We remember that in 1976, a few months after the Green March, the Soviets supported the Boumédiène regime and the Polisario separatists against Morocco, an ally of France and the United States”he recalls.
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