Strasbourg, January 21, 2016 (SPS) - The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, refused Thursday to European Parliament in Strasbourg that the question of occupied Western Sahara, a "political" issue, to be discussed outside plenary and thus aborting an attempt to get it out of its legal framework.
In an exchange of views Thursday morning with members of the Committee on Budgetary Control of the European Parliament on the 2014 budget for the European External Action Service, she stressed, in reply to a question by French Socialist MEP Gilles Pargneaux, that the question of Western Sahara is question with "political character," which should be discussed in plenary or at the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.
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Federica Mogherini meant, in his reply to French MEP, it is not to focus only on the humanitarian and budgetary aspects of this question, but it is necessary to understand the Western Sahara issue in its whole. This issue, she insisted, must be taken into account through its dimension "essentially political", since it is ultimately to settle the final status of the occupied territories of Western Sahara, which is the subject to a process of negotiations under the auspices of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and in accordance with resolutions of the Security Council.
Western Sahara was declared in 1964 by the UN non-self-governing territory. it was forcibly occupied by Morocco in 1975, it should be recalled.
Several rounds of negotiations between the conflicting parties the Polisario Front and the Moroccan kingdom under United Nations auspices, but the Moroccan party hamper these negotiations, especially regarding the organization of a referendum to decide the fate of the Saharawi people. (SPS)
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