Rabat- In his landmark speech delivered on the 39th anniversary of the Green March, King Mohammed VI reaffirmed Morocco’s determination not to cede an iota of its territory over the “Western Sahara,”and called upon the United Nations and the United States to clarify their positions on the conflict.
While recalling that Morocco has shown readiness and good faith in solving the territorial dispute based on a spirt of compromise and a win-win approach, the king stressed that Morocco’s sovereignty over the territory is “not negotiable.
“It must be emphasized, however, that Morocco’s sovereignty over its entire territory is effective, inalienable and non-negotiable,”the King said.
He reiterated that the autonomy plan, presented by Morocco to the Security Council in April 2007, is all Morocco can offer in terms of negotiations with the Polisario, adding that any deviation from the political process, or any approach that doesn’t respect the country’s sovereignty over the ‘Western Sahara’would undermine the United Nations action.
“The autonomy initiative is the maximum Morocco can offer in terms of negotiation to achieve a final solution to this regional conflict,”he noted.
Echoing the Moroccan government’s concerns over the attempts made by the Polisario, Algeria, and their supporters to expand the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Organization of the Referendum in the Western Sahara (MINURSO) to include the monitoring of human rights, the Moroccan monarch emphasized that he rejects any such attempts.
“‘No’to any attempt to reconsider the principles and criteria of the negotiation process, or any attempt to revise and expand the MINURSO mandate to include such matters as the supervision of the human rights situation,”he said.
He called on the United Nations to clearly determine the way in which it intends to deal with the issue moving forward and avoid any deviation from its core mandate in the conflict.
In the same vein, while he valued the positive role played by the United States in finding a political solution to the conflict, he stressed that its position on the conflict remains ambiguous. He, therefore, called on the American administration to clearly define its position on the conflict.
“While valuing its support for Morocco’s efforts and for the negotiating process on the basis of the autonomy initiative, I am calling, today, for a clear position concerning this conflict,”he noted.
“At a time when [the administration] reaffirms that Morocco is a model for democratic development, an influential state in ensuring security and stability in the region and a partner in the fight against terrorism, there is some ambiguity in the way it deals with the question of its territorial integrity,”he added
While the United States has often expressed its support to the UN-led political process to achieve a political and mutually acceptable solution to the conflict, it has never clearly showed a clear support to the Moroccan stance.
“We continue to consider as serious, realistic and credible the autonomy proposal made by Morocco to settle the dispute,” is the same statement repeated by every U.S official in recent years, whether it be President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, or the US Ambassador to Morocco, Dwight Bush, last month.
Yet the American ambiguity on the conflict was on display in April 2013 when the then US Representative to the United Nations, Susan Rice, presented a draft resolution to the Security Council that contained a provision calling for the expansion of the mandate of MINURSO to include a human rights monitoring mechanism for the region.
This provision was finally dropped from the draft resolution following a diplomatic campaign led by Morocco to avert such scenario.
© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed