The UN Security Council on Thursday called for a “realistic” political solution in the contested territory of Western Sahara as it passed a resolution extending the UN mission there for another year.
The US-sponsored resolution renewed the mandate of MINURSO, also known as the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, until October 31, 2025, AFP reported.
The resolution passed with support from 12 of the Security Council's 15 member states; Algeria -- which submitted two rejected amendments -- refused to vote in protest, while Russia and Mozambique abstained.
In a statement on the resolution, the Security Council emphasized “the importance of aligning the strategic focus of MINURSO and orienting resources of the United Nations to this end” for the former Spanish colony.
Considered a “non-autonomous territory” by the United Nations, Western Sahara covers approximately 266,000 square kilometers north of Mauritania.
The territory, which contains valuable mineral deposits and long stretches of coastline fisheries, is largely controlled by Morocco.
For decades, it has constituted a dispute between Rabat and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front.
Morocco had proposed an autonomy plan that would provide for a degree of self-government for Western Sahara under its sovereignty. In return, the Polisario has called for a referendum on self-determination, under the auspices of the United Nations, as stipulated in the 1991 ceasefire agreement.
Last Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron promised in Rabat his country’s “diplomatic” commitment to push the Moroccan solution on Western Sahara at the UN as well as within the European Union.
“We will act by engaging diplomatically to convince that the Moroccan solution is the only one within the European Union, at the United Nations,” he said in front of the French community in Morocco.
Earlier last month, the UN envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura has proposed dividing the territory between Morocco and the Polisario Front in order to resolve the decades-old conflict. However, his plans were swiftly rejected by the Polisario that said the plan fails to “enshrine” the Sahrawi people's right to self determination.
Sidi Omar, the Polisario representative to the UN, said in a post on X that the movement strongly affirms its total and categorical rejection of any proposals or initiatives, which do not fully enshrine and ensure the inalienable, non-negotiable and imprescriptible right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination and independence or do not respect the territorial integrity of Western Sahara.
