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No sooner had Staffan de Mistura, the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, left the Tindouf camps for Laayoune than the Polisario General Secretariat convened an extraordinary session. Officially, the meeting focused on «the evolution of the national issue at various levels: military, political, the occupied territories, the south of Morocco, as well as the different aspects of managing internal national affairs and the diplomatic front in general, particularly at the United Nations», SPS reported.
«The convening of this meeting was motivated by the nature of the offer presented by Staffan de Mistura to Brahim Ghali and his collaborators. The UN envoy presented the United States’ proposal to resolve the conflict, namely: autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty», a Moroccan source close to the matter told Yabiladi.
Polisario pressed to respond to the U.S. offer
The source recalled that, on September 5 in Washington, the special adviser to President Donald Trump for Africa reaffirmed to de Mistura that «the only viable solution for Western Sahara is true autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty».
According to the same source, «if the Polisario accepts this solution, negotiations should take place in the coming months, under UN auspices, between all concerned parties, to define the contours of this autonomy». The source added: «The ball is now in the court of Algeria and the Polisario. These two allies must present their responses to the United States in the coming weeks, before the adoption of the next Security Council resolution, scheduled for late October». The extraordinary session of the Polisario’s permanent office is being held «in this context», the source concluded.
For now, the Polisario has shown no sign of openness. Following the discussions on Sunday, September 21, in the Tindouf camps between Brahim Ghali and Staffan de Mistura, the movement said in a statement that «the only way to achieve a peaceful, just, and lasting solution lies in the free and democratic exercise by the Sahrawi people of their inalienable, non-negotiable, and imprescriptible right to self-determination and independence. Any solution that does not respect the will of the Sahrawi people is entirely unacceptable».
In September 2023, the Polisario had already rejected a proposal from the Biden administration on Western Sahara, after talks in the Tindouf camps between Brahim Ghali and U.S. diplomat Joshua Harris.
