Sahara: Spanish PM reiterates call to achieve compromise-based political solution

Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, on Friday reiterated before the 75th UN General Assembly Spain’s call for a political solution to the Sahara issue, based on compromise in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council.

“We must find a just lasting and mutually acceptable political solution to the Sahara conflict, in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions,” Pedro Sanchez pointed out in his virtual address during the high-level debate of the UN General Assembly.

The Spanish PM’s speech was similar to the one he made at the 74th UN General Assembly in 2019. In that speech, too, he reaffirmed Spain’s neutrality on the Sahara issue and vowed to support the UN-led political process.

While reiterating this position, before the General Assembly, Spain confirms the burying once and for all of outdated and obsolete plans regarding the artificial regional dispute over the Moroccan Sahara.

The same support to the UN-led process in the Sahara was reiterated by Spain’s Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya when she visited Morocco in January 2020.

“Spain’s position on the [Western] Sahara conflict does not change depending on which political party or which coalition is leading the government,” Laya had then said.

The Spanish diplomat added that her country maintains a constant position on the Sahara issue based on the centrality and exclusivity of the UN-led political process.

During the General Assembly, President of Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, underlined when touching on the Sahara issue that “the notable results, which were achieved following the convening of the two round tables in Geneva, between Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania and the Polisario, deserve to be consolidated in order to achieve a consensual political solution to the Moroccan Sahara issue.”

To this end, he called for the appointment of a new UN Special Envoy to continue the work of his predecessor, Hörst Kohler, who had resigned last year for health reasons.

President of the Republic of Sao Tome and Principe Evaristo do Espirito Santo Carvalho on his part called on all the parties concerned by the regional dispute over the Sahara to work “in order to achieve a mutually acceptable political solution.”