Bir Lahlou (Liberated Territories), 15 February 2020 (SPS) - The Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and the Polisario Front welcomed, on Friday, the joint statement issued by the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) in which both bodies reiterated their commitment to international legality in Western Sahara.
In a statement released by the Saharawi Ministry of Information, the SADR and the Polisario Front said that the joint statement issued by the two organisations "in the present circumstances and three decades after the signing by the two parties of the AU-UN peace agreement in 1991, stresses that a just, permanent and final settlement cannot be achieved without the exercise by the Saharawi people of their inalienable right to self-determination and independence, in accordance with international legality, which classifies the question of Western Sahara within its legal framework as a decolonisation issue."
The SADR and the Polisario Front welcomed the common position expressed in the statement made public on Thursday by the AU and the UN, after the meeting of their coordination commissions in the common framework aimed at promoting peace and security.
The two organizations "stressed their commitment to international legality in the framework of the international community's efforts for the decolonization of Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa," the same source added.
For the Saharawi leadership, the reaffirmation by the two organizations of their commitment to international legality is "a strong sign" at a time when France, in the International Security Council, and Spain are trying to change the legal and juridical status of the Saharawi issue, in blatant complicity with the Moroccan occupier."
The reaffirmation of international legality "comes at odds with the dark tunnel into which France is trying to introduce the UN-AU process, using terminology extrinsic to decolonization issues and to the UN resolution on the granting of independence to colonized countries and peoples, such as "realism", "pragmatism" or "understanding," which often hide colonialist agendas of forces whose interests are closely linked to outdated mentalities aimed at confiscating the Saharawi people's rights to self-determination, independence and sovereignty," noted the communiqué of the Saharawi leadership. (SPS)
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