Morocco and Western Sahara separatists to hold talks
▶ Rabat set to defend sovereignty over region against Polisario Front’s demand for self-determination
The UN will host preliminary talks in Geneva this week between Morocco and the separatist Polisario Front over the future of the Western Sahara.
The invitation, sent by UN envoy Horst Koehler in October, said: “It is time to open a new chapter in the political process.”
Although all of the principal parties may be in attendance, the outcome remains uncertain. Morocco originally claimed the former Spanish territory after the European colonisers withdrew in 1975.
But the phosphate-rich region, stretching about 1,000 kilometres from Morocco’s border to the Atlantic coast, has since been the source of fierce local resistance and an arena for Morocco’s continuing cold war with Algeria.
Morocco’s claims to the Western Sahara are contested by the area’s Sahrawi population, who declared it the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic the year after the Spanish pulled out. The Sahrawi’s Polisario Front was trained, equipped and armed by Algiers, and has been pushing for independence ever since.
“The region is crucial to Rabat for a mix of historical, political and economic reasons,” Sarah Feuer of the Washington Institute told The National. “Moroccans have long considered the Sahara part of the historic region that later became their modern-day state.”
For many, the Western Sahara has become a key part of the Moroccan identity and one that could be risky to give up.
But resistance to Morocco’s territorial claims within the Western Sahara has been intense, leading to short-lived conflicts between the Polisario Front and Moroccan forces in the late 1980s.
The UN intervened and a ceasefire was agreed on in 1991. But despite the efforts of the international community, any long-term settlement has proven elusive.
After flawed peace proposals by the UN were rejected by all parties, Morocco forwarded its own proposal to the global body in 2006.
It suggested that the Western Sahara be granted autonomy, with Rabat retaining ultimate sovereignty. It would control defence and foreign affairs, including relations with Algeria.
Subsequent talks on the issue, however, eventually became weighed down before being reaching a stalemate in 2012.
“From Morocco’s standpoint, Rabat has already demonstrated flexibility in offering the ‘autonomy under sovereignty’ plan of 2006,” Ms Feuer said.
“I don’t expect them budging on this. Nor do I anticipate the Polisario showing much flexibility and dropping the demand for full independence.”
Algeria has long been party to the dispute, consistently proving as intractable as the independence movement.
Although it has no major infrastructure, the Western Sahara’s is economically valuable to Morocco, which is the world’s largest exporter of phosphate, with a significant portion of the resource being mined within the Western Sahara.
Oil exploration within the area and offshore promises future revenue from which Rabat is unlikely to walk away.
During a recent speech, King Mohammed VI confirmed that Morocco was not prepared to yield on its “territorial integrity”, including control over Western Sahara.
Key Polisario official Mohammed Khadad told AFP that “everything can be negotiated except the inalienable right of our people to self-determination”.