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<h1 class="reader-title">Polisario Front Blames UN for
“Political Deadlock” in Western Sahara Negotiations</h1>
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<p><strong>The pro-independence Polisario Front fighting
Morocco for control over Western Sahara has blamed the
United Nations for a “political deadlock” in the
decades-long conflict.</strong></p>
<p>February 28, 2021.- The organization, which represents
the indigenous Sahrawi people fighting for the
independence of the resource-rich Western Sahara region,
urged the UN on Saturday to help end the conflict in the
former Spanish colony.</p>
<p>“We ask the United Nations to urgently fulfill its
promises: that of ridding Western Sahara of
colonization, in accordance with its Charter and its
resolutions,” Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali said
in a speech at a refugee camp in Western Sahara.</p>
<p><em>“The Sahrawi people will keep up their struggle for
justice and to liberate Sahrawi territory from the
Moroccan presence,” Ghali said as Polisario armed
forces marched in a military parade to mark the 45th
anniversary of their unilateral declaration of
independence.</em></p>
<p>The United Nations brokered a truce between the warring
sides in 1991 and promised that a referendum would be
held on independence, which has yet to take place.</p>
<p><em>“The Polisario Front tried for 29 years to avoid
war by making concessions, but it has faced a total
absence of cooperation both from the Moroccan side and
the UN,” senior Polisario official Khatri Addouh was
quoted as saying by official Sahrawi news agency SPS.</em></p>
<p><a
href="https://orinocotribune.com/african-solidarity-conference-calls-on-un-and-au-to-speed-up-the-total-liberation-of-western-sahara/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED CONTENT:
African Solidarity Conference Calls on UN and AU to
Speed Up the Total Liberation of Western Sahara</a></p>
<p>The UN is responsible for the “political deadlock” on
the Sahrawi question due to its “laxity” in the face of
Morocco, Addouh added.</p>
<p>UN-led negotiations involving Morocco and the
Polisario, with Algeria and Mauritania as observers,
have been suspended since March 2019.</p>
<p>The Western Sahara’s push for independence against
Spanish colonial rule was led by the Polisario Front in
1973.</p>
<p>After the colonial forces left in 1975, the Polisario
Front backed by Libya and Algeria went to war against
Morocco and Mauritania, which later pulled its forces
out of the region.</p>
<p>Since the ceasefire agreement in 1991, most of the
disputed Western Sahara territory has remained under
Moroccan control.</p>
<p>The pro-independence forces now control one-fifth of
Western Sahara with additional pockets of control in the
Sahrawi refugee camps that have been set up along the
Algerian border.</p>
<p><a
href="https://orinocotribune.com/sahrawis-condemn-us-recognition-of-moroccos-sovereignty-over-western-sahara/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED CONTENT:
Sahrawis Condemn US Recognition of Morocco’s
Sovereignty Over Western Sahara</a></p>
<p>Despite the ceasefire, the two sides regularly exchange
fire along the demarcation line.</p>
<p>The Sahrawi movement aims to gain fully recognized
independence for Western Sahara.</p>
<p>The situation has become more complicated since the
administration of former US president Donald Trump
brokered a normalization deal between Morocco and the
Israeli regime late last year.</p>
<p>As part of the deal, the US agreed to recognize
Morocco’s claim over “the entire Western Sahara
territory,” disregarding the fact that the region is an
internationally recognized disputed area.</p>
<p>In recent years, Morocco has been able to win the
recognition of its claim to sovereignty over the
disputed territory from numerous countries, which have
opened consulates in Western Sahara.</p>
<p>The Polisario considers the opening of the missions a
“violation of international law and an attack on the
legal status of Western Sahara as a non-autonomous
territory.”</p>
<p><strong>Western Sahara returns to European Court of
Justice</strong></p>
<p>Next week, the European Court of Justice will discuss
EU-Morocco accords allowing Rabat to export goods from
Western Sahara that are contested by the
pro-independence forces.</p>
<p>It is to hold two sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday but
a ruling will take “several months,” a spokesman for the
Luxembourg-based court told AFP.</p>
<p>For the Polisario, Moroccan exports from the disputed
territory amount to “looting of its natural resources,”
notably agricultural goods, phosphates and fish,
according to the movement’s French lawyer Gilles Devers.</p>
<p><em>Featured image: Sahrawi soldiers parade during the
celebrations marking the 45th anniversary of the
declaration of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
(SDAR), at a refugee camp on the outskirts of the
southwestern Algerian city of Tindouf, on February 27,
2021. (Photo by AFP)</em></p>
<p>(<a
href="https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2021/02/28/646221/Western-Sahara-UN-Negotiation-Polisario-Front"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">PressTV</a>)</p>
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