Algiers, 31 October 2021 (SPS) - The Sahrawi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohamed Salem Ould Salek, reaffirmed Saturday that the option of peace, as an alternative to war, is only possible on the basis of respect for international legality, which does not recognize the sovereignty of Morocco over Western Sahara.
"We hope that the new personal envoy of the UN SG, Staffan de Mistura, will be able to convince the other party (Morocco) and those behind it, that three decades of denial of the Sahrawi national reality and the attempts to bury the ceasefire agreement between the two parties, should be enough to convince them that the option of peace is only possible on the basis of respect for international legality, which does not recognise the sovereignty of Morocco over Western Sahara," Ould Salek declared in a statement to APS.
It is "the alternative to the war, which is currently raging between the two armies, Sahrawi and Moroccan," noted the head of Sahrawi diplomacy following the adoption by the UN Security Council of the resolution extending the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) for one year.
For Mr Ould Salek, the Security Council, by its approval on Friday of resolution 2602, "understood that there is no longer a ceasefire". "It reached the same conclusion as the African Union before it, by concluding that the war between the two parties has resumed after the aggression of 13 November 2020 (in El-Guerguarat). This was confirmed by Secretary General Antonio Guterres in his report to the Council" on the situation in Western Sahara, he said.
Faced with this stalemate, Mr. Ould Salek cited two options for resolving the four-decade-old conflict: "the two member countries of the African Union (AU), the Sahrawi Republic and Morocco must accept a peaceful solution on the basis for decisions of the AU Extraordinary Summit on Silencing the Guns Strategy and the Peace and Security Council (PSC) summit. "
Or "the Security Council sets a date for the organisation of the self-determination referendum, which is MINURSO's only mission".
"Agreement on one of the two options has now become the only way to achieve a new ceasefire," said Mr Ould Salek.
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