“Excessive bias towards Morocco.” Algeria responds to the non-renewal of the mission of the United Nations Mission in Western Sahara

The Algerian government expressed in a statement, on Saturday, its “deep regret” over the non-renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Mission to Organize the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), after Morocco welcomed the step. On Friday, the Security Council voted on a draft resolution submitted by Russia regarding Western Sahara, which received the support of 3 members, the United States opposed, and 11 countries abstained from voting.

The United Nations said: “The draft on extending the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MONURSO) was not adopted because it did not obtain the required majority of the 15 members of the Council.” A draft resolution submitted by the United States on Western Sahara was met with a Russian veto, with 3 countries abstaining from voting and 11 countries supporting it. In a statement by its Foreign Ministry, Algeria renewed its “commitment to reaching a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution that guarantees the Sahrawi people the exercise of their right to self-determination in accordance with the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and its relevant resolutions,” according to the Algerian News Agency.

The statement said: “The excessive bias that marred the draft resolution before the Security Council has made this outcome inevitable. This is because the draft has been excessively and blatantly tilted in favor of one party over the other, that is, in favor of the Kingdom of Morocco at the expense of the Polisario Front, to the point where it can no longer be considered, in any way, a serious basis for reaching a just and lasting solution to the conflict in Western Sahara.”

The statement of the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated that, “Before the draft resolution was presented to a vote, the Minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs, the National Community Abroad, and African Affairs had sent official letters to the members of the Security Council, drawing their attention to the extremely serious repercussions of the developments witnessed in the way of dealing with the conflict in Western Sahara. He had warned them in particular of the dangers resulting from the adoption of a resolution aimed at establishing a fait accompli in the region and legitimizing a status quo based on occupation, at the expense of the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination.”, According to what was reported by the Algerian agency.

The Ministry stressed that, despite “the amendments made to the text, its final version has emptied the right to self-determination of its content, by adopting the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco, in light of its alleged sovereignty over Western Sahara, as the sole basis for negotiations. An approach that greatly narrows the range of options available to the two parties, and anticipates the results of the political path, while the settlement of the conflict must lead to enabling the Sahrawi people to freely exercise their right to self-determination.”

The Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in the statement that “deleting the letter (R), which symbolizes the term referendum, from the acronym of the United Nations Mission to Organize a Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) constitutes a worrying political signal. This entails, first of all, the exclusion of the option of a referendum, which has historically been linked to the mission’s mandate and to the Sahrawi people’s exercise of their right to self-determination.”

The ministry went on to say: “Likewise, and contrary to the approach adopted in Resolution No. 2797, the aforementioned project deprives the Polisario Front, the sole legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, of the possibility of presenting its own perceptions and ideas regarding reaching a just and lasting solution to the conflict in Western Sahara within the course of negotiations.” The statement concluded: “This project has diverted the course of decolonization from its true nature, legitimized the seizure of lands by force, and emptied the right of a people to self-determination of its content and stripped it of the mechanism to realize it.”

For these reasons combined, it could not be considered a valid framework for conducting fruitful negotiations, just as it was not qualified to serve the goal of establishing security and stability in the region. On Friday evening, the Moroccan Royal Court issued a statement welcoming the UN Security Council’s failure to extend the mission of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), explaining that “this mission, inherited from an outdated context, constituted a tool to internationalize the conflict.”