Birlahlou (Liberated Territories), 7 February 2023 (SPS) - The President of the Republic, Secretary General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, reaffirmed that the Polisario would not participate in any process outside the referential framework set in the UN-AU joint settlement plan.
In a letter addressed on Monday to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in which he informed him of the results and conclusions of the 16th Congress of the Polisario Front, Ghali affirmed that the only applicable and practical solution to decolonize Western Sahara was "the exercise by the Saharawi people of their inalienable and non-negotiable right to self-determination and independence in accordance with the relevant UN and African Union (AU) resolutions as well as the 1991 joint UN-OAU settlement plan".
The President of Republic stressed "the imperative to intensify efforts to achieve a rapid and lasting solution for the last colony in Africa, being a sine qua non condition for restoring peace and stability in the region".
In his letter, President Ghali recalled that the UN- OAU (currently AU) settlement plan remains the only agreement officially accepted by both parties (Polisario Front and Morocco) in August 1988 and unanimously adopted by the Security Council in its resolutions 658 (1990) and 690 (1991) establishing the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO)
President Ghali reiterated his full support for the Secretary-General's efforts for the organization and supervision by the UN, in coordination with the AU, of a referendum on the self-determination of the Saharawi people.
To this end, the President of the Republic affirmed the "clear and strong" position of the Polisario Front, which refuses to participate in any operation that could deviate, in substance or form, from the referential framework defined in the UN-OAU settlement plan, from which MINURSO derived, in accordance with Security Council resolution 690 (1991).
Referring to the work of the 16th Congress of the Polisario Front, Mr. Ghali said that it had constituted "an important platform for Polisario Front militants to participate in a broad debate on all regional and international issues, thus reflecting the consensus of the Saharawi people, under the leadership of the Polisario Front, on the need to intensify their liberation struggle on all fronts in order to achieve their legitimate aspirations to freedom, the independence and full recovery of SADR's sovereignty over its territory".
Addressing the situation in the occupied Sahrawi territories, the Sahrawi president stressed that the Congress "condemned in the strongest terms the abhorrent policy of repression and intimidation practiced by the Moroccan occupation against Sahrawi civilians and human rights activists, calling to "take urgent measures to end the suffering of all Sahrawi political prisoners, including the group of Gdeim Izik, and ensure their immediate and unconditional release so that they can return to their country with their families.
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