Morocco at UNGA asks Algeria to take a hard look in the mirror
Morocco has once again, in the UN General Assembly, held Algeria responsible for the perpetuation of the conflict in the Sahara territory and for the fate of thousands of Sahraouis living in precarious conditions in the Polisario-run camps in southern-Western Algeria.
In response to an address by Algeria’s foreign minister Ramtane Lamamra in which he ironically urged the UN to relaunch the peace process in the Sahara, the Moroccan delegation recalled that Algeria should take part in the same round table format in which it participated twice before it announced its decision to withdraw.
Algeria has shown its real face as the real party to the conflict when it rejected the latest UN Security Council resolution on the Sahara which stresses the pre-eminence of Morocco’s autonomy plan and calls on all parties to negotiate in good faith towards a political and mutually acceptable solution.
The resolution said the UN process should go-on under the same round table format. Algeria said it will not attend, while Morocco made it clear on multiple occasions that no process will take place without Algeria’s active participation as the party that hosts, arms and backs diplomatically the Polisario separatist front.
The Moroccan delegation recalled that the Sahara issue is a question of Morocco’s territorial integrity and not a decolonization issue as Algeria prefers to frame it.
The Sahara issue is examined under chapter IV of the UN charter as a regional dispute, the Moroccan party said.
Morocco’s prime minister Aziz Akhannouch has alerted the General Assembly a few days ago to the ordeal suffered by thousands of Sahraouis under the yoke of a separatist militia in the Tindouf camps in south-Western Algeria.
He called on Algeria to allow a head count of this population and warned of the increasing connivance between the Polisario and terrorist groups in the Sahel.
The General Assembly was a chance for numerous countries to reaffirm support for Morocco’s territorial integrity, with Guatemala and Somalia announcing the setting up of consulates in the Sahara territory, joining 40% of African and many Arab and Caribbean states that already brought their support for Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara to a tangible level.
