West-Sahara

Morocco is seeking backing for a proposal it tabled in 2007 that would offer limited autonomy via a devolved government in Western Sahara, with tax raising and budgetary powers, though with foreign relations, security and defence remaining in the hands of Rabat.

Tensions between Morocco and Algeria have risen lately, and there is now a heightened risk of armed conflict arising. The escalation is rooted in the dispute over the status of Western Sahara, where Morocco appears to feel that its claim to sovereignty is gaining international support.

Morocco’s King Mohammed VI hosted Spanish prime minister on Thursday in a landmark visit ending a year-long diplomatic crisis, after Madrid reversed decades of neutrality on the Western Sahara conflict in a U-turn that has angered Algeria.

The United States on Tuesday reiterated its support for a Moroccan plan for autonomy in the Western Sahara to settle the kingdom's decades-old conflict with the Polisario independence movement.

Since hostilities between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front in Western Sahara resumed in November 2020, the EU has been reluctant to play an active role in the conflict. But a recent EU Court of Justice ruling against the inclusion of Western Sahara in the EU-Morocco trade deal could soon force Brussels to step into the fray.

Morocco is determined to “turn the page definitively” on the Western Sahara conflict but without giving up its “legitimate rights” over the disputed territory, Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said Tuesday.

Algeria has accused its arch-rival Morocco of killing three Algerians on a desert highway, as tensions escalate between the neighbors over contested Western Sahara.

The United Nations Security Council has extended the UN peacekeeping mission in the disputed Western Sahara for a year, expressing concern at the breakdown of the 1991 ceasefire between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front and calling for a revival of UN-led negotiations.

The fighting in Western Sahara, which broke out again in November 2020, remains of low intensity. Yet outside powers would be wrong to assume that it will not escalate. With U.S. support, the new UN envoy should pursue confidence-building measures that could facilitate negotiations.

United Nations Secretary‑General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Staffan de Mistura of Italy as his Personal Envoy for Western Sahara.