Morocco and Polisario reject the partition of the Sahara and Spain “does not change its position”

Eduardo González Both the Government of Morocco and the Polisario Front have shown their rejection of the partition plan proposed last week by the United Nations special envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura. For its part, the Spanish Government has limited itself to recalling that De Mistura himself has admitted that “the parties do not agree on the proposed solution” and that “Spain does not change its position” on this issue. De Mistura presented this proposal during a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council, in which, given the lack of progress in this dispute, he advocated “advancing constructively in the political process and with urgency”, according to the transcript of his speech to which the Europa Press agency had access. The Italian-Swedish diplomat explained during the meeting that he had discussed “with all the parties concerned in the conflict” a possible “partition of the territory” under which the northern part would remain under the sovereignty of Morocco and the southern part, which “could be based on the limits of the portion controlled by Mauritania” between 1976 (after the Spanish withdrawal) and 1979, would be for the Polisario Front, where it would establish a new independent State with Dakhla as its main city. According to De Mistura, “some countries in the region and beyond (without further details)” had shown “some interest in this possibility”, but Morocco and Polisario do not seem to have “the will to explore” this avenue, which, in his opinion, “deserves to be taken into account”. This is not the first proposal in this regard. Apart from the 1976 partition under the Madrid Accords, James Baker, former UN special envoy, had already presented the same proposal in 2002. In relation to this proposal, official sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs consulted by The Diplomat have recalled that “the UN special envoy himself has admitted that the parties do not agree on the solution proposed by him” and that “Spain does not change its position” of support for the autonomy plan defended by Morocco, announced by the Government of Pedro Sánchez at the beginning of 2022. Morocco and the Polisario In response to this partition plan, the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, declared this Monday in Rabat that “the Sahara, the unity of Morocco and its territorial integrity have never been on the negotiating table, nor have they been the subject of understandings and compromises.” “Morocco has reiterated, in accordance with the High Instructions of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, its clear position, already expressed in 2002, when the same idea had been raised by the former personal envoy of the UN Secretary General for the Sahara, James Baker, at the proposal of Algeria,” Bourita recalled, quoted by the state news agency MAP. The Moroccan delegation, he added, had made clear to De Mistura its rejection of “such ideas,” which are in contradiction with “the position of principle of the Kingdom and that of all Moroccans on the Moroccanness of the Sahara, which forms an integral and indivisible part of the territory of the Kingdom.” For his part, the representative of the Polisario Front in Switzerland and before the United Nations and international organizations in Geneva, Abi Bechraya Al-Bashir, expressed on Tuesday his rejection of Staffan de Mistura's proposal "for reasons of principle related to the legal framework of the territory, the principle of self-determination and international law", but, above all, "because it constitutes a violation of one of the main components of self-determination related to the Territory of Western Sahara". Speaking to France 24 Arabic, Becharai warned that the Polisario Front has never accepted the division of the territory with any of the parties, unlike Morocco, which accepted its division in 1975. He also added that De Mistura's proposal is "an implicit recognition" of the impossibility of the Sahrawi people living with the Moroccan authority under the same roof and, therefore, of the impossibility of implementing the autonomy that Morocco defends. In this regard, he warned that the special envoy's words should be understood as "a message to the countries that support Morocco," which "have fallen into the arms of the unknown" by supporting a "vague and unclear" autonomy proposal.

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