Algeria, for its part, has responded by announcing that it was withdrawing its ambassador in Paris “with immediate effect.” The Polisario Front has recalled that it is “the Sahrawi people, not France or any other country, who decide the present and future of Western Sahara.”
The Moroccan royal cabinet announced on Tuesday that France supports the plan for autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty for Western Sahara presented by Morocco to the UN, saying it is the “only basis” for resolving the conflict.
In a statement, the royal cabinet reports that this support is officially expressed in a letter sent by French President Emmanuel Macron to the King Mohammed VI on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his enthronementwhich takes place this Tuesday, in which France considers that “the present and the future of Western Sahara are within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty.”
For its part, the Polisario Front He recalled that it is “the Sahrawi people, not France or any other country, who decide the present and future of Western Sahara.” In a statement sent by the Polisario ambassador to the UN, Sidi Mohamed Omar, he recalled that “neither France nor Morocco can bend the will of the Sahrawi people,” and promised that the latter would continue to fight for its independence “by all legitimate means.”
For Omar, France’s position is contrary to international law, and more specifically to its obligations as a permanent member of the Security Council, since it openly supports “the illegal occupation of Western Sahara (when) it is a territory pending decolonization”.
With his statements, Omar alludes to the fact that the conflict in Western Sahara falls within the competence of the Security Council, which annually renews the UN mission in the territory (MINURSO), which arrived in 1991 to theoretically organize a referendum and which now limits itself to monitoring a ceasefire.
The U-turn by France today has already had diplomatic effects: today, Algeria – a major international supporter of the Polisario Front – announced that it was withdrawing its ambassador from Paris “with immediate effect.”
“The French Government ended up giving its frank and categorical support to the colonial fact imposed on Western Sahara. (This step, which) no other French Government had previously believed necessary to take, the current one did. with great lightness and great frivolity“without clearly assessing all the possible repercussions,” the Algerian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
France follows in the footsteps of Spain and the US
France’s change of position comes two years after SpainThe former colonial power of Western Sahara, made a similar move in its foreign policy, stating that the Moroccan autonomy plan is “the most serious, realistic and credible basis” for resolving the dispute.
In December 2020, then-US President Donald Trump recognised Moroccan sovereignty over the territory of Western Sahara in exchange for Morocco normalising its diplomatic relations with Israel, which also recognises it.
Source: Eitb
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