In its latest resolution 2440 adopted on Wednesday, the UN Security Council has clearly designated Algeria as a stakeholder in the Western Sahara conflict, putting an end to the Algerian regime’s maneuvers to shirk its responsibilities and commitments in this territorial dispute, which pits it against its Moroccan neighbor.
The Security Council on the other hand extended for six months, at the urging of the United States, the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Sahara “MINURSO”, while calling the parties to the conflict (Morocco , Algeria, Mauritania and Polisario) to show “realism and a spirit of compromise” to reach a political settlement of this issue.
In its resolution 2440, the UN body also welcomes the “serious and credible efforts” made by Morocco to move forward the process seeking to reach a political and consensual settlement of the Sahara conflict, indirectly referring to the Autonomy Plan for the Sahara that Morocco had submitted to the UN on 11 April 2007.
Moreover, the Security Council, which did not mention the option of the self-determination referendum, a favorite topic for the Algerian regime, summoned the Polisario Front to engage in no activity whatsoever “in Bir Lahlou, Tifariti and in the buffer zone at Guergarat,” sweeping away the Polisario’s allegations as to the existence of so-called” liberated territories”.
For the UN executive body, “the materialization of a political solution to this long-standing dispute and the strengthening of cooperation among the Arab Maghreb Union member states would contribute to stability and security, which, in turn, would leads to the creation of jobs, growth and opportunities for all the peoples of the Sahel region”.
And it is in this perspective that American diplomacy has pleaded for renewing the MINURSO mandate for six months only to put more pressure on the parties to the conflict to participate fully in the UN-sponsored process of settling the Sahara issue.