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Members of the UN Security Council attended, Tuesday, a vote on the Western Sahara conflict. The UN body extended the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) for six months, adopting resolution 2468.
Commenting on the decision, Foreign Affairs Minister Nasser Bourita said that the Security Council formally named «the parties to the regional dispute», announcing in a statement relayed by MAP press agency that «it is the first time since 1975, that the Council mentions Algeria five times in this resolution».
To Bourita the UN body «acknowledged therefore that a strong, continuous and constructive involvement by Algeria is necessary to put an end to this long-running regional dispute». Moreover, the Minister stressed that the notion of realism was «used at least four times», adding that the UNSC has thus strongly rejected the attachment by other parties to the «referendum» and «independence».
The Minister commended the new resolution, noting that it reiterates the injunction to the Polisario to respect the ceasefire, since paragraph 6 recalls commitment by the separatist movement to the UN Personal Envoy to withdraw from Guergarate and refrain from any destabilizing action in Bir Lahlou and Tifariti.
The Polisario's disappointment
On the other hand, the Polisario Front expressed its disappointment after the adoption of resolution 2468. In a communiqué issued from New York, the Front pointed at «the failure of the Security Council to condemn the destabilizing actions of Morocco [which] encourages the Moroccan occupying power to persist in its intransigence and to undermine an already fragile political process».
For the record, last week, the separatist movement's leader Brahim Ghali sent a letter to the President of the Council. South Africa was later responsible for promoting the Front's request to other members of the Council, but without any real success.
«We have already seen the harmful effects of the silence of the Security Council. In recent months, Morocco has intensified the pace and scale of cease-fire violations and brutally repressed the Sahrawi population living in the occupied territories».
Brahim Ghali's movement is disappointed that expressions like «realism and compromise» were mentioned in the text. On the other hand, the entity «reaffirms that the only feasible, realistic and sustainable solution is the one that would give our people the inalienable right to decide their own destiny in a free, democratic and unconditional manner».
The separatist movement regrets that «the Security Council has missed a significant opportunity to fulfill its commitment to end the status quo and demand that Morocco put an end to the illegal occupation of Western Sahara».
