250 Political Figures Support US Recognition of Moroccan Sovereignty Over Western Sahara Region

Moroccan and American officials in the desert city of Dakhla on January 2021. (AFP)
Moroccan and American officials in the desert city of Dakhla on January 2021. (AFP)
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250 Political Figures Support US Recognition of Moroccan Sovereignty Over Western Sahara Region

Moroccan and American officials in the desert city of Dakhla on January 2021. (AFP)
Moroccan and American officials in the desert city of Dakhla on January 2021. (AFP)

A group of 250 political leaders and elected officials from 25 countries in Europe and Latin America signed a letter this week addressed to President Joe Biden, expressing support for the US’ recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara.

“Mr. President, we, former heads of government, former ministers, elected officials, members of parliaments, have the honor to write to you to express our satisfaction with the sovereign decision of the United States of America to recognize the full sovereignty of Morocco over the entire territory of the Sahara,” read the letter, published by former Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Giulio Terzi.

Among the signatories of this letter are former Czech President Vaclav Klaus, former Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales Cabrera, former Bulgarian Prime Minister Georgy Bliznachki, former member of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) Stephan Todorov Davidov, as well as several members of parliament and senators currently in office.

“We can only welcome the US decision to recognize the autonomy initiative as the sole basis for a solution to the Sahara regional dispute,” they stressed.

They pointed out that the US decision came at a time when the political process needed a “new impetus.”

“We believe it opens concrete prospects for guiding the UN political process towards a final solution,” the letter added, indicating that they are convinced that the US, under the presidency of Joe Biden, will continue to move the Sahara issue towards a just and lasting solution through its continued support for the Moroccan Autonomy Initiative.

Autonomy is the only way to end the suffering of the people living in the Tinduf camps in Algeria, to ensure reconciliation and achieve permanent peace and stability in a strategic region, by creating a real vector of peace, stability, and prosperity in Africa and even in the world, it explained.

“We are concerned with the consequences that an indefinite extension of the status quo could have; allowing for acts of terror carried out by armed militias in a highly strategic area, and key to the stability of the African continent and the Euro –Mediterranean basin.”

“We are delighted about the developments taking place in the Sahara Provinces, which continue to record honorable human development indices.”

A progress that was made possible thanks to the New Development Model of the Sahara Provinces launched by King Mohammed VI in 2015, with a budget of eight million dollars.

They noted that this development, which brings jobs and prosperity, is visible in infrastructure, hospitals, town planning, services, schools, not to mention economic projects of all kinds, agricultural, industrial, tourism, and social and solidarity economy.

This development has gone hand in hand with flourishing democratic local governance. In 2015, the two regions of the Sahara recorded the highest turnout in the first regional elections held in Moroccan history.

Today, Sahrawis, including former “Polisario” official, chair the two regional councils in the region through internationally recognized free and transparent elections, making them the only legitimate representatives of the region’s population, it read, adding that these elected officials propose, vote and implement, in contract with the State, the development projects of their regions in order to meet citizens’ aspirations.

The management contributes a prelude to what the autonomy plan would offer under Moroccan sovereignty, with the creation of “regional legislative, executive and judicial bodies.”

“We believe it is no coincidence that a growing number of nations, including the United States, support the Autonomy Initiative as a realistic, viable, and sustainable political solution based on compromise,” the 250 signatories stressed.

“We are also delighted that the US has joined 20 other countries in opening consular representations in the Sahara, in the cities of Laayoune and Dakhla.”

This decision, they said, not only recognizes Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara provinces, but also Morocco’s role as a historic link between Europe and Africa as a regional economic pole carrying many opportunities for investors from all over the world and prospects for future knowledge and employment for the youth of the African continent.

They finally welcomed the Trilateral Pact signed between Morocco, Israel, and the United States, which will strengthen the prospects for peace in the Middle East, in accordance with the historic role that Morocco has played in advancing peace in the Middle East.



UN Races to Feed One Million Gazans after Truce

People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)
People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)
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UN Races to Feed One Million Gazans after Truce

People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)
People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)

The UN's World Food Program said Sunday it was moving full throttle to get food to as many Gazans as possible after border crossings reopened as part of a long-awaited ceasefire deal.

"We're trying to reach a million people within the shortest possible time," the WFP's Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told AFP, as the Rome-based UN agency's trucks began rolling into the strip.

"We're moving in with wheat flour, ready to eat meals, and we will be working all fronts trying to restock the bakeries," Skau said, adding the agency would attempt to provide nutritional supplements to the most malnourished.

An initial 42-day truce between Israel and Hamas is meant to enable a surge of sorely needed humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory after 15 months of war.

"The agreement is for 600 trucks a day... All the crossings will be open," Skau said.

The first WFP trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south and through the Zikim crossing in the north, the agency said in a statement, as it began trying to pull "the war-ravaged territory back from starvation".

"We have 150 trucks lined up for every day for the next at least 20 days," Skau said, adding that the WFP was "hopeful that the border crossings will be open and efficient".

There needs to be "an environment inside (Gaza) that is secure enough for our teams to move around," so that food "does not just get over the border but also gets into the hands of the people".

"It seems so far that things have been working relatively well.... We need to now sustain that over several days over weeks," he said.

Before the ceasefire came into effect, WFP was operating just five out of the 20 bakeries it partners with due to dwindling supplies of fuel and flour, as well as insecurity in northern Gaza.

"We're hoping that we will be up and running on all those bakeries as soon as possible," Skau said, stressing that it was "one of our top priorities" to get bread to "tens of thousands of people each day".

"It also has a psychological effect to be able to put warm bread into the hands of the people".

WFP also wants to "get the private sector and commercial goods in there as soon as possible," he said.

That would mean the UN agency could replace ready meals with vouchers and cash for people to buy their own food "to bring back some dignity" and allow them "frankly to start rebuilding their lives".

WFP said in a statement that it has enough food pre-positioned along the borders -- and on its way to Gaza -- to feed over a million people for three months.

Vast areas of Gaza have been devastated by Israel's retaliatory assault on the territory after the October 7 Hamas attack last year sparked the war.

The attack, the deadliest in Israel's history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 46,913 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.