Morocco is closing a 35-year chapter of external oversight in the Sahara and asserting full ownership of the next phase on its own terms.
King Mohammed VI has chaired a meeting in that regard urging full respect of Morocco’s territorial integrity and tranquility of the Kingdom’s citizens including in the southern provinces, while reiterating Morocco will remain “voluntarily” committed to the ceasefire.
The Monarch urged continuation of the development momentum in the Southern Provinces, the Sahara, according to a Royal Palace Statement.
This came following a meeting chaired by King Mohammed VI attended by Head of Government, Royal Advisor, Interior Minister, and the army’s commander of the Southern Zone.
The message was clear. The Sahara territory is part of Morocco’s domestic policy.
Administrative authority, and security readiness are being aligned under a single national framework.
The interior ministry has been tasked with coordinated an orderly withdrawal of the MINURSO, which the palace described as a mission that has been created in another context that was no longer relevant.
The palace also drew attention to the mission’s incapacity to ensure compliance with the ceasefire nor consequences for its breach.
For many Moroccans, the impending departure of MINURSO is a long-awaited relief.
Established in 1991 around a ceasefire and a referendum that never took place, the mission gradually lost relevance as diplomatic realities, power balances, and settlement parameters evolved.
Successive UN reports themselves documented its operational limits. The mission has been restricted by Algeria and the Polisario, inability to independently verify incidents, and an increasingly contested claim to neutrality.
For decades, the mission became a mechanism that artificially prolonged the internationalization of a dispute Morocco considers fundamentally settled by history, geography, and growing international recognition of its autonomy initiative.
