Brussels, 14 December 2020 (SPS) - European Inter-Parliamentary Conference for Solidarity with Sahrawi People on Saturday condemned US President Donald Trump's unilateral declaration on alleged Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara, stressing that the move is a serious violation of the UN Charter and all the international resolutions issued by the United Nations and the African Union.
"Western Sahara is not for sale and cannot be the object of any kind of bargaining," said the 136 participants in the conference, in a statement at the end of the event held by videoconference.
They said that Trump’s statement which announced Thursday, in a Tweet, that he had "negotiated an agreement for Morocco to normalize its relations with Israel" and, in return, the United States will recognize the alleged Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, is "a serious treason against the Saharawi people as well as the Palestinian people."
Mentioning Morocco's aggression against Saharawi civilians in the Guerguerat buffer zone, in the southwest of Western Sahara, on November 13th, the participants in the conference have "vehemently condemned the violation of the 1991 ceasefire agreement" by the Kingdom of Morocco and "the repressive campaign subsequently launched against the Saharawi population in the occupied territories."
They also noted that the "the decades-long conflict in Western Sahara and the United Nations' failure to enforce the rights of the Saharawi people, starting with their right to self-determination, have led to a prolonged stalemate that has clearly favored the illegal occupier, Morocco."
They took the opportunity to appeal to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres to "get out of immobility and act urgently for the respect of the inalienable rights of the Saharawi people (UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 of 1960)."
The conference was attended by the former Special Representative of the UN for Western Sahara, the Italian Francesco Bastagli, the European Parliament (EP) member (of the European Unitary Left), Manu Pineda, and the head of EUCOCO, Pierre Galand.
It addressed the situation in the occupied Western Sahara territories and appealed to the United Nations Human Rights Council and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to "act urgently for the liberation of all Saharawi political prisoners held in Moroccan prisons." (SPS)
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