Horst Köhler Briefs UN Security Council, Morocco Scores Points

Horst Köhler Briefs UN Security Council, Morocco Scores Points

The Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary General for the Moroccan Sahara, Horst Köhler, briefed on Wednesday the UN Security Council on his second tour in the Maghreb region that led him to Algeria, Mauritania and Morocco from June 23 to July 1.
While in Morocco, after the talks he held in Rabat on June 27, he visited the Sahara cities of Laayoune, Smara and Dakhla from June 28 to July 1.

In his briefing to the Security Council, Horst Köhler expressed his thanks to the Moroccan authorities for facilitating his trip to the southern provinces.
According to diplomatic sources in New York, Köhler expressed his appreciation for the efforts made by Morocco to ensure the success of his visit to the Sahara provinces, during which he got in touch, in complete freedom, with all the interlocutors he had wished to meet.

The Personal Envoy had met with the Presidents of the two regions of the Sahara as well as with elected officials, local dignitaries and civil society activists who all expressed their support for the Moroccan autonomy initiative.

In his briefing, Horst Köhler also expressed satisfaction at the opportunity he had to witness first-hand the economic and social development of the region, the diplomatic sources said.

The Security Council members welcomed the atmosphere in which the regional tour of the Personal Envoy took place, in particular the visit to the Moroccan Sahara.

According to the diplomatic sources, the majority of the Council’s members expressed their satisfaction with the results of the various meetings and visits undertaken by the Personal Envoy, and called on him to continue working and interacting with all parties to maintain the momentum of the resumption of the UN-sponsored process.

Likewise, they have unanimously reaffirmed their strong support for a realistic and pragmatic solution, based on compromise, to the regional dispute over the Moroccan Sahara, in accordance with resolution 2414, adopted on 27 April 2018.

The Council members have also expressed their support to the Moroccan autonomy initiative as a serious, credible and sustainable solution to the regional dispute.
Some members were keen on expressing appreciation for the efforts made by Morocco to promote the political empowerment and the economic and social development of the southern provinces.

The Security Council members’ renewed support for the realistic, pragmatic and compromise political solution to this regional dispute is a further reaffirmation that the theses of the Polisario and its mentor Algeria are obsolete, outdated and unrealistic.

Moroccan authorities expressed satisfaction Thursday at the support expressed by the UN Security Council to the Moroccan autonomy initiative, while insisting on the role of Algeria as “main party responsible for the genesis and perpetuation of this dispute”.

“The involvement of Algeria is essential”, an authoritative source told the news website le360, recalling that in its resolution 2414, the Security Council urged the neighboring countries, particularly Algeria, “to cooperate more fully with the United Nations and with each other and to strengthen their involvement and to achieve progress towards a political solution”.

“No settlement of the Sahara issue is possible outside the full sovereignty of Morocco over its Sahara, nor outside the autonomy initiative that the international community has recognized as seriousness and credibility,” the source said.

Bottom line, with this new briefing before the Security Council, Morocco has scored new points.

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