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.



Israeli Fire Kills 30 in Gaza, Medics Say, as Attention Shifts to Iran 

Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
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Israeli Fire Kills 30 in Gaza, Medics Say, as Attention Shifts to Iran 

Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)

Israeli gunfire and strikes killed at least 30 people across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, local health authorities said, as some Palestinians there said their plight was being forgotten as attention shifted to the air war between Israel and Iran.

The deaths included the latest in near daily killings of Palestinians seeking aid in the three weeks since Israel partially lifted a total blockade on Gaza that it had imposed for almost three months.

Medics said separate airstrikes on homes in the Maghazi refugee camp and Zeitoun neighborhood in central and northern Gaza killed at least 14 people, while five others were killed in an airstrike on a tent encampment in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Eleven others were killed in Israeli fire at crowds of displaced Palestinians awaiting aid trucks brought in by the United Nations along the Salahuddin road in central Gaza, medics said.

The Israel army said it was looking into the reported deaths of people waiting for food. Regarding the other strikes, it said it was "operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities" and "feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm."

On Tuesday, Gaza's health ministry said 397 Palestinians among those trying to get food aid had been killed and more than 3,000 wounded since aid deliveries restarted in late May.

Some in Gaza expressed concern that the latest escalations in the war between Israel and Hamas that began in October 2023 would be overlooked as the focus moved to Israel's five-day-old conflict with Iran.

"People are being slaughtered in Gaza, day and night, but attention has shifted to the Iran-Israel war. There is little news about Gaza these days," said Adel, a resident of Gaza City.

"Whoever doesn't die from Israeli bombs dies from hunger. People risk their lives every day to get food, and they also get killed and their blood smears the sacks of flour they thought they had won," he told Reuters via a chat app.

'FORGOTTEN'

Israel has been channeling much of the aid it is now allowing into Gaza through a new US- and Israeli-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates a handful of distribution sites in areas guarded by Israeli forces.

It has said it will continue to allow aid into Gaza, home to more than 2 million people, while ensuring aid doesn't get into the hands of Hamas. Hamas denies seizing aid, saying Israel uses hunger as a weapon against the population in Gaza.

The Gaza war was triggered when Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli allies.

US ally Israel's subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, displaced almost all the territory's residents, and caused a severe hunger crisis.

The assault has led to accusations of genocide and war crimes, which Israel denies.

Palestinians in Gaza have been closely following Israel's air war with Iran, long a major supporter of Hamas.

"We are maybe happy to see Israel suffer from Iranian rockets, but at the end of the day, one more day in this war costs the lives of tens of innocent people," said 47-year-old Shaban Abed, a father of five from northern Gaza.

"We just hope that a comprehensive solution could be reached to end the war in Gaza, too. We are being forgotten," he said.