The US Position, Pressure Card to Drown Morocco in Normalization

On Monday, the United Nations Security Council held a closed-door consultation on the latest developments in Western Sahara, which Morocco has occupied since 1975.

This session was preceded by a visit to the region by UN envoy de Mistura, during which he discussed the status and prospects of the UN-sponsored peace process in Africa’s last colony. The session emphasized the Sahrawi people’s commitment to their legitimate rights and continued demand for self-determination.

This consultation session, along with de Mistura’s recent visit to the Sahrawi camps in Tindouf (southern Algeria) and his meeting with Western Sahara’s government officials and officials from neighboring countries, comes within an international and regional context in which interests and ideas clash, and positions shift according to the logic of self-interest. This is particularly true after France took an ill-advised step in favor of the colonizing country, promoting the so-called “autonomy for Western Sahara within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty.”

Furthermore, the US State Department confirmed Trump’s previous position, which favors French recognition, although it has not yet followed with provocative steps toward the Sahrawi people.

The significance of these shifts lies in the fact that both countries are among those with veto power in the UN Security Council. Will this change the course of the Western Sahara issue, which has been on the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories since 1963, after Spain, the occupying country, transmitted information regarding the Spanish Sahara under Article 73 (e) of the UN Charter?

In response, Algeria expressed its regret for the actions of these countries, which violate international legitimacy in the Western Sahara issue. Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf affirmed that “Algeria’s firm conviction that the only way to complete the process of decolonization in Western Sahara lies in the resumption of direct negotiations between the two parties to the conflict, the Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front, without preconditions and in good faith, to reach a political solution that guarantees the Sahrawi people’s inalienable and imprescriptible right to self-determination.”

In this file, we will seek to analyze the latest American move and examine its impact on the fate of the struggle led by the Sahrawi people for self-determination.