‘Western Sahara conflict to end when Morocco ‘occupation’ over’
ALGIERS: The pro-independence Polisario Front said Monday that conflict in the Western Sahara would end once Morocco stops its “occupation” of the disputed territory, as the UN said the two sides had exchanged fire.
The crisis erupted after Morocco launched a military operation Friday to reopen a key highway at the Guerguerat border crossing between the territory and Mauritania.
It accused the Polisario of blocking the highway, which is key to trade with the rest of Africa.
The Algerian-backed Polisario, which does not recognise the existence of the highway, responded by declaring the end of an almost three-decade UNsupervised ceasefire in Western Sahara.
“The end of the war is now linked to the end of the illegal occupation of parts of the territory of the Sahrawi Republic,” senior Polisario official Mohamed Salem Ould Salek said on Monday.
“The war only started as a consequence of Morocco’s aggression and action in Guerguerat,” said Ould Salek, who is foreign minister of the Polisario-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
He also downplayed the importance of the highway, where trucks had been blocked for weeks. Traffic resumed on Saturday between Mauritania and Morocco, the two countries have said.
“It is not an international or even regional road. It is being used to loot the natural resources of the Sahrawi people,” Ould Salek said, accusing Morocco of having started the latest conflict.
Rabat controls around three quarters of the Western Sahara, a vast swathe of desert on the Atlantic coast, including its phosphate deposits and its lucrative ocean fisheries. The Polisario controls the remainder.
Morocco maintains that Western Sahara is an integral part of the kingdom and has offered autonomy for the disputed territory, but insists it will retain sovereignty.
Ould Salek said a full implementation of the 1991 ceasefire – namely organising the self-determination referendum set out in the truce deal – was a condition for an end to hostilities.
The vote has been repeatedly postponed due to disputes between Rabat and the Polisario over voter rolls and the question to be put on the ballot.
Morocco says it is still committed to the ceasefire.
The Moroccan official news agency MAP said late Sunday that Rabat’s military had responded to fire by the Polisario Front along a UN-patrolled buffer zone.