After the call to order from Brussels and the niet from Moscow, Rabat suffered a diplomatic affront this time from Washington.
Morocco has recently suffered several setbacks in diplomacy regarding the Sahrawi issue. The latest came from the US Congress, which blocked the opening of a consulate in occupied Dakhla and an operation to sell armed drones, revealed the Spanish daily La Vanguardia in its Sunday edition, relayed by APS.
Two commitments contained in the agreement on recognition by former President Donald Trump of Morocco’s alleged sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for the normalization of relations between Rabat and the Hebrew state. Citing sources in Congress, the Spanish daily said that the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee has been blocking these two commitments for several months.
The blocking of these promises in Congress has not been revealed so far, but, according to La Vanguardia, “they have been frozen for almost five months without the State Department taking any action to attempt to do so.” bypass or negotiate a compromise with members of Congress ”.
The House of Representatives foreign affairs committee asked the State Department to inform it before July of the state of progress of contacts within the framework of the United Nations to reactivate negotiations, according to the newspaper.
In February, 27 senators, including Republicans, wrote a letter to President Biden, asking him to revoke Trump’s decision on Western Sahara. Last December, former US President Donald Trump proclaimed his recognition of Morocco’s alleged sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for the normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel.
On Wednesday, the US State Department evoked a change of approach on the part of the Biden administration regarding the Sahrawi question. State Department spokesman Ned Price told a briefing that his department is pushing for “the best way to end the violence and achieve a lasting settlement.”
And to maintain: “(…) I will certainly dispute the characterization according to which there would be continuity, including as regards our approach towards the region, since the last administration.”
During a meeting held at the end of March with the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres, the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, expressed the support of the United States for “political negotiations” in view to resolve the conflict and “urged the UN Secretary-General to speed up the appointment of a personal envoy to Western Sahara”.
During his confirmation hearing in the United States Senate, he observed that some of the incentives included in the so-called “Abraham’s” agreements relating to the normalization of relations of certain Arab countries with Israel to be subject to “careful consideration. “.
Instrumentalisation of the migration issue
On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in which it criticized Morocco’s use of the migration issue for political ends, in reference to the fact that Rabat allowed thousands of migrants to pass last May. migrants, including many unaccompanied minors, to Spanish territories in reaction to the hospitalization in Spain of the Saharawi president, Brahim Ghali.
The European Parliament “rejects the use by Morocco of border controls and migration, in particular of unaccompanied minors, as a means of political pressure on a Member State of the Union, deplores in particular that children, unaccompanied minors and families have crossed the border between Morocco and the Spanish city of Ceuta on a massive scale, thus clearly endangering their lives and security, ” according to the resolution.
He recalled that “the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs recognized that the massive entry of thousands of people, including children, resulted directly from the fact that the leader of the Polisario Front had been welcomed in Spain ” and that “in an official statement published subsequently, the Moroccan authorities indicated as a real reason the position considered ambiguous of Spain on Western Sahara ”.
Also, the Parliament “recalls that the protection and security of Ceuta concern the whole of the European Union because the autonomous city is part of its external borders”. On the same day, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, affirmed that her country’s position vis-à-vis the Sahrawi question “has not changed”.
She specified that “the final settlement of the conflict can only be achieved through the application of the relevant decisions issued by the General Assembly and the Security Council under the United Nations within the framework of measures in accordance with the principles and objectives of the United Nations Charter ”.
Registered since 1966 on the list of non-self-governing territories, and thus eligible for the application of resolution 1514 of the UN General Assembly on the declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples, Western Sahara is the last colony in Africa, occupied since 1975 by Morocco, supported by France.
Meeting of the Decolonization Committee
The Special Committee responsible for studying the situation with regard to the application of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, known as the Committee of Twenty-Four, has been examining since yesterday, within the framework of its substantive session (June 14-25) the situation in Western Sahara, reports APS.
Each year, the Special Committee of Twenty-four examines the list of Non-Self-Governing Territories to which the Declaration applies. It hears statements from representatives of non-self-governing territories during its annual sessions, sends visiting missions to these territories, and organizes regional seminars each year.
It also “disseminates information on decolonization, information relating to non-self-governing territories communicated in the application of paragraph e of article 73 of the United Nations Charter and on the issue of sending missions. visits to the territories in question ”.
In addition to Western Sahara, the issues of Gibraltar and Tokelau and those of other Non-Self-Governing Territories are also on the menu of the annual substantive session of the Committee, which was established in 1961 by the General Assembly, of which it is the subsidiary body responsible for the question of decolonization, in accordance with the provisions of resolution 1654 (XVI) of November 27, 1961.
