Madrid, May 6, 2013 (SPS) - Basque National Party has asked the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, to appear before parliament to provide clarifications on Madrid’s failure to support a UN resolution, which provides for the monitoring of human rights in Western Sahara, quoted Monday by the London-based newspaper Al Quds Al-Arabi.
The party, in this respect, asked the Spanish parliament to invite the Foreign Minister Mr. Margallo to appear before it in order to provide clarifications on Spain’s failure to support the draft resolution on entrusting the MINURSO with human rights monitoring component in Western Sahara, at a time when Madrid spearheaded this task during the past years.
The party cited the statements of the minister before parliament on June 20th last year, where he indicated that Spain supports human rights monitoring in Western Sahara.
The surprise was, noted the newspaper, that after Washington presented a draft resolution providing for the assignment of MINURSO forces, but Spain, as a member Group of Friends of Western Sahara, opposed this draft resolution and asked to alert Morocco without assigning MINURSO with this new mission, arguing that Western Sahara conflict is treated in the framework of Chapter VI of the UN Charter, which does not impose change on the nature of MINURSO forces, without the approval of the other party.
Spanish Foreign Minister, it added, will find himself vulnerable to strong criticism from political parties, especially those sympathetic with the Saharawi issue such as the United Left and the Union, Progress and Democracy (UPyD). (SPS)
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