UN Security Council backs Western Sahara talks

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The Security Council adopted a resolution on Friday to extend the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara for six months until Oct. 31.

The council renewed for six months the mandate of a UN mission that has been monitoring a ceasefire in Western Sahara since 1991 and spelled out steps for a return to negotiations.

October 18, 2017: A German MINURSO peacekeeper standing during the visit of the new UN envoy for the disputed territory of Western Sahara to the Aousserd camp for Sahrawi refugees on the outskirts of Tindouf, southwest Algeria. /VCG Photo

Resolution 2414 won the support of 12 of the 15 members of the Security Council while China, Ethiopia and Russia abstained.

The resolution emphasizes the need to make progress toward a "realistic, practicable and enduring political solution" to the question of Western Sahara based on compromise.

"The expectation is clear," US political coordinator Amy Tachco told the council after the vote. "It is time to see progress toward a political solution and after 27 years, to stop perpetuating the status quo."

The resolution expresses concern over the presence of the Polisario Front, which is fighting with Morocco for the independence of Western Sahara, in the buffer strip in Guerguerat in the southwestern tip of the disputed territory, and calls for its immediate withdrawal.

October 18, 2017: The new UN envoy for the disputed territory of Western Sahara, Horst Koehler (C) visits the Aousserd camp for Sahrawi refugees on the outskirts of Tindouf. /VCG Photo

Moroccan ambassador to the United Nations Omar Hilale said after the adoption of the resolution that there would be no political process without the withdrawal of the Polisario Front from Guerguerat.

The resolution also voices concern over the Polisario Front's announcement of the planned relocation of its administrative functions from Algeria to Bir Lahlou in the northeast of Western Sahara, and calls for the Polisario Front to refrain from "any such destabilizing actions."

The adoption followed a week of contentious negotiations during which Russia and Ethiopia complained that the proposed measure appeared to favor Morocco's stance.

After the vote, Russia and Ethiopia expressed disappointment at the United States, which drafted the resolution, for not incorporating their concerns in the final text.

Russian Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov told the council that the resolution was "unbalanced," adding: "Let's not decide in the place of the sides what the outcome will be" of a new round of talks.

Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vladimir Safronkov addresses the UN Security Council meeting at UN Headquarters in New York, United States, April 26, 2018. /VCG Photo

Western Sahara was partitioned between Morocco and Mauritania at the end of Spain's colonial rule in 1976. When Mauritania, under pressure from Polisario guerrillas, abandoned all claims to its portion in August 1979, Morocco moved to occupy that sector and asserted administrative control over the whole territory. Fighting broke out between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front.

A cease-fire was signed in 1991. The UN mission, known by its French acronym as MINURSO, was deployed that year to monitor the cease-fire and to organize, if possible, a referendum on self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.

Source(s): AFP ,Xinhua News Agency