Sahara : The UN does not take sides, says UNSG Spokesman

The United Nations does not take sides in the Sahara issue, said, Tuesday in New York, UNSG spokesman Stéphane Dujarric.

«The UN does not take sides. The MINURSO reports what it observes. The mission has to cover a very large zone. It goes and reports what it sees,» he said at the daily press briefing, answering a question on allegations by some media outlets on this issue.

«Again, it is not a matter of taking sides. It is a matter of reporting what we see, as will do the Secretary-General in his report,» to the Security Council, Dujarric added.

The permanent representative of Morocco to the United Nations, ambassador Omar Hilale, sent on Sunday a letter to the UNSC president Gustavo Meza-Cuadra, in which he warned that the relocation of any «polisario» facility, be it civil, military, administrative, or of any kind or nature whatsoever, from the Tindouf camps in Algeria, to the East of the security structure in the Moroccan Sahara, «constitutes a casus belli».

On Monday, and in another press briefing, Dujarric said : «With respect to that situation, our colleagues in MINURSO [United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara] have not observed any movement of military elements in the northeast territory».