UN Security Council backs new Western Sahara talks attempt

UN sees new dynamic for political deal

The United Nations Security Council has unanimously backed attempts to restart talks between Morocco and the Polisario independence movement over the Western Sahara conflict and has extended its peacekeeping mission for another year. The resolution late on Friday came after the UN mission confirmed the Polisario had withdrawn troops from disputed territory’s Guerguerat area, where they faced off since last year with Moroccan forces. Rabat pulled back its forces earlier this year.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres earlier this month called for Morocco and the Polisario Front, who fought a war over the region until a 1991 ceasefire, to enter new negotiations that would include proposals from both sides. “This action should improve the prospects of creating an environment that will facilitate early implementation of Mr Guterres’s determination to relaunch the negotiating process,” the UN spokesman said in a statement noting Morocco’s early pullback and confirming Polisario withdrawal.

A vast desert area bordering the Atlantic Ocean, Western Sahara has been contested since 1975 when colonial Spain left. Morocco claimed the region, but Polisario fought a guerrilla war for independence until the UN-backed ceasefire. UN talks have long failed to broker an agreement on how to decide on self-determination. Morocco wants an autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty. But Polisario wants a UN-backed referendum including on the question of independence. The UN resolution on Friday extended the UN peacekeeping mission, known as MINURSO, until April 30, 2018 and called on the parties to show political will and to resume negotiations for a fifth round of talks.

It supported a “new dynamic and new spirit” to reach a mutually acceptable political solution. Past attempts to broker a deal have been fallen apart over the referendum terms, including who should be allowed to vote and whether questions of independence or autonomy should be on the ballot. The Security Council has also been split. France backs former colony Morocco, the United States was more cautious and Polisario’s self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic was supported by former non-permanent members Venezuela and Angola. Earlier this year, Morocco also returned to the African Union regional bloc as a way to lobby diplomatic support for its autonomy plan for the disputed territory.

Friday’s UN Security Council resolution noted the need for more support for Sahrawi refugees who fled the conflict and have since lived in camps in the south of Algeria. Since the 1991 ceasefire, the region has effectively been split by an earthen wall separating an area controlled by Morocco that it claims as its southern provinces, and territory controlled by the Polisario with a UN-mandated buffer zone between them.

Tensions rose last year when UN peacekeepers intervened in a standoff after Moroccan forces crossed beyond the earthen wall in Guerguerat near the Mauritania border and Polisario responded by dispatching troops to the area.