Sahrawi Ambassador: “French position is “old-new” and has no legal effect”

The Sahrawi Arab Republic Ambassador to Algeria, Abdelkader Taleb Omar, confirmed on Monday in Algiers that the Sahrawi people will continue their struggle until they extend their sovereignty over all their occupied territories, stressing that all Moroccan maneuvers to consolidate their occupation of Western Sahara will not succeed, because international legitimacy guarantees the Sahrawi people the right to self-determination.
This came during a solidarity symposium with the Sahrawi people organized by the newspaper “El Moudjahid” and the “Torch of the Martyr” Association in coordination with the Embassy of the Sahrawi Arab Republic in Algeria and the National Institute for Comprehensive Strategic Studies, which addressed the latest developments in the Sahrawi issue, in the presence of national figures, diplomats from Africa and Latin America, parliamentarians, media professionals and representatives of civil society.
In his speech during the symposium, Ambassador Abdelkader Taleb Omar reviewed the latest developments in the Sahrawi issue, most notably the recently announced French position on supporting the so-called “autonomy plan in the Western Sahara region”, which he stressed was “new and old, because France did not skimp and did not hesitate to provide its support to it by all means and in all fields, including the military”, citing the French “Jaguar” aircraft that Morocco used to bomb Sahrawi civilians.
The Sahrawi diplomat  underscored that the French position biased towards the Moroccan occupying state “has no legal effect”, highlighting that the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, confirmed in his latest report that the Sahrawi issue is a decolonization issue and its solution will only be within the framework of the United Nations, which guarantees the Sahrawi people the right to self-determination.
The Sahrawi ambassador also pointed to the position of the European Union in this regard.
For his part, the Director General of the National Institute for Comprehensive Strategic Studies, Abdelaziz Mejahed, reviewed in his speech the path of the Sahrawi people’s struggle for freedom and independence and for their right to self-determination, in accordance with what all relevant international conventions confirm.
Regarding Paris’s support for the Moroccan thesis in Western Sahara, Mujahid said that “what is built on falsehood is falsehood and the right to self-determination is guaranteed to the Sahrawi people by force of international law.” And “this principle for resolving the conflict in Western Sahara – he added – will only come about by organizing a self-determination referendum.”
For his part, the legal expert and member of the Algerian Committee for Solidarity with the Sahrawi People, Boujemaa Souilah, confirmed in a statement to “APS” that “the French position is not a cause for concern, because the Western Sahara issue is a decolonization issue and is registered on the United Nations agenda on this basis.”
Therefore, “the positions of the rest of the countries and organizations do not change anything about the legal nature of the Sahrawi issue.”
The speaker also called for a break with the policy of “collusion, procrastination, delay and plundering of wealth” because, according to him, these are methods that lead to a new colonialism, warning of the repercussions of supporting the Moroccan occupation in Western Sahara on security and peace in the region.
He also expressed his denunciation of the French position that violates international law, despite France being a member of the UN Security Council. During the symposium, mujahideen and university professors presented interventions on the struggle of the Sahrawi people for their right to freedom and independence, stressing that Algeria’s support for the Sahrawi people stems from its firm positions in supporting all liberation movements in the world.