Algiers, 9 October 2024 (SPS) - Algeria Minister of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad, Ahmed Attaf, said Tuesday that he is convinced that the UN must assume its responsibility towards the issue of Western Sahara as a “decolonization issue,” underlining that CJEU’s recent decisions “have thwarted the desperate attempts to bury the foundations of this cause in order to impose the colonial fait accompli.”
In a speech delivered on the occasion of the celebration of the Algerian Diplomacy Day, which coincides with Algeria's accession to the UN on 8 October 1962, Attaf affirmed: “When it comes to Western Sahara’s cause, the last colony in Africa, we remain fully convinced that the UN must fully assume its responsibilities,” adding that “only four days ago, the highest European judicial authority rendered justice to the Sahrawi people and, through its decisions, thwarted the desperate attempts of five decades to bury the foundations of this cause and thus impose the colonial fait accompli.”
“CJEU’s recent decisions have confirmed well-established facts, recognized by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for nearly 50 years, that the Sahrawi cause is a decolonization issue and that the Sahrawi people remain fit to exercise their inalienable and imprescriptible right to self-determination,” he said, considering that “the myth of autonomy cannot underpin any solution, being fundamentally in contradiction with the right to self-determination.”
“The final settlement of this conflict can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the two parties to the conflict, the Polisario Front, as the legal and only representative of the Sahrawi people, and the Kingdom of Morocco as the occupying party of Western Sahara,” he recalled.
“These are the facts and realities that disturb those accustomed to spreading lies to the point of believing themselves.” “The most surprising thing is to hear, while we follow the reactions concerning the decisions of CJEU, member states of this same institution try to convince us that trade agreements are above everything when it comes to Western Sahara,” Attaf said.
“The most serious thing is that all these stories are justified by strategic relations with the Kingdom of Morocco, common interests with this country and growing ambitions to seize the resources of Western Sahara,” said Attaf, adding that “at a time when we speak of countries proclaiming themselves as standard-bearers of the principles of the rule of law, displaying their commitment to international legitimacy while claiming to be fervent defenders of human rights,” said Attaf.