Western Sahara Issue: Spanish Parties Call Upon Sanchez to Go Back on His U-turn

Parties from the majority and opposition alike summoned Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, on Tuesday, to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, to ask him to provide clarifications about the content of the letter sent from Sanchez in March 2022 to Moroccan King Mohammed VI.

In his response to the interventions of the MPs, the head of Spanish diplomacy confirmed that his government continues to defend the “role of the United Nations” in resolving the Western Sahara conflict.

The political parties in Spain, despite the passage of a year since their country’s sudden shift in position on the Western Sahara issue, are still surprised, after 40 years of support of the Sahraoui people, especially since the Madrid government continues to pursue secrecy in everything related to the Western Sahara file, according to the expression of the political class in Spain.

Local media said that the Spanish opposition and some majority parties commemorated in their way the first anniversary of the Spanish government’s declaration of support for the autonomy proposal for Western Sahara presented by Morocco in 2007, as the Spanish MPs from the People’s Party, Vox, the Catalans and the Basques left their differences aside and summoned Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares last Tuesday to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee to ask him to reveal the content of the secret letter.

The Spanish opposition accused Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of serving the interests of Morocco “for nothing”, as the spokeswoman for the People’s Party, Valentina Martinez Ferro, considered that King Mohammed VI did not receive Sanchez during the twelfth high-level meeting held on February 1 and 2 in Rabat.

The opposition parties considered that the secrecy pursued by the Sanchez government in everything related to the sudden shift in position on Western Sahara and surrender to Morocco is a matter of concern and suspicion, and the Spanish people have the right to know the nature of this matter, according to what was confirmed by Vox party’s spokesman Ivan Espinosa de los Monteros.

For their part, representatives of the Republican Left of Catalonia spoke about the rejection of some components of the majority of Pedro Sanchez’s decision, pointing to Unidas-Podemos’ rejection of Pedro Sanchez’s decision to support the Moroccan initiative for autonomy.

Further, Euskal Herria Bildu’s spokesman, John Iñárritu, called for establishing good relations with Morocco, but on the condition that “the price to be paid is not to abandon the Sahrawi people, and to turn a blind eye when tragedies occur on the territory of Spain, such as the incident in the Melilla region on June 24, when thirty immigrants were killed”.