MADRID 4 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, met this Thursday afternoon with the UN special envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, to convey to him that the Saharawi conflict is a “issue of decolonization” that must be resolved through the “inalienable right to self-determination”, a position conveyed shortly before to the United Nations envoy by other senior officials of the group in the refugee camps of Tindouf (Algeria).
In this sense, Ghali has reiterated his commitment to cooperate with both the UN and the African Union to achieve a “just and lasting solution” to the conflict based on the principles of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, as reported by the Sahara agency. Press Service.
De Mistura is intensifying his contacts with both the Polisario Front and Morocco – he met with the Moroccan Foreign Minister, Naser Burita, within the framework of the UN General Assembly in New York – ahead of the secretary’s report General of the United Nations, António Guterres, who will present before the Security Council to make a decision on the expansion of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) on October 16.
A few hours earlier, the United Nations envoy also met with senior officials of the Polisario Front in the refugee camps of Tindouf (Algeria), where he visited facilities and held some visits with groups of women, youth and local and regional officials with the objective of evaluating the humanitarian situation of the Sahrawi refugees.
It should be noted that Morocco does not consider the option of a referendum and will only accept “autonomy, under Moroccan sovereignty, as the sole and only solution to this regional dispute,” according to a statement released by the Moroccan mission to the UN after the Burita meeting. with De Mistura.
The former Spanish colony of Western Sahara was occupied by Morocco in 1975 despite the resistance of the Polisario Front, with whom it remained at war until 1991 when both parties signed a ceasefire with a view to holding a self-determination referendum. The differences over the preparation of the census and the inclusion or not of Moroccan settlers have prevented it from being called so far.
The latest setback for the Sahrawis was the support of the Spanish Government for the Moroccan autonomy plan, a change of position described as betrayal by the Polisario, which recalls that Spain is still ‘de jure’ the administrative power of Western Sahara.
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