New York (UN), 7 November 2022 (SPS) - Member of the National Secretariat of the Polisario Front, the representative at the United Nations and coordinator with MINURSO, Dr. Sidi Mohamed Omar, has stressed that it was the repeated failure of the UN Security Council to shoulder its responsibility that brought the United Nations sponsored peace process in Western Sahara to its current state of deviations and total stalemate.
In an article published Saturday in the Algerian newspaper "El Khabar," following the adoption on October 27, 2022 by the UN Security Council of its resolution 2654 (2022), by which it decided to extend the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) for another year until October 31, 2023, Dr. Sidi Mohamed Omar affirmed, "the reason why MINURSO had not been able to fully implement its mandate, namely, to hold a free and fair referendum to enable the people of Western Sahara to exercise its inalienable right to self-determination and independence, is crystal clear and reflected in the following two facts. First, the lack of political will of the Moroccan occupation state to move towards a peaceful and just solution to the conflict, including its retreat from its commitments and its refusal to fully implement the joint settlement plan between the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity for the years 1990-1991, which is the basis of the mandate of MINURSO and the reason for the deployment of the mission in the region".
"Secondly, there is an absence of will on the part of some active members of the Security Council to use the diplomatic and other tools of the Council to compel the Moroccan occupying state to fulfil its obligations under the United Nations and African Union settlement plan, which remains the only agreement accepted by the parties, the Polisario Front and Morocco," he added.
The Sahrawi official reiterated the readiness of the Sahrawi party to cooperate with the efforts of the United Nations and the African Union to achieve a peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict between the Sahrawi Republic and the Moroccan occupation state, in accordance with the principles of international legitimacy and the objectives of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, reaffirming, at the same time, that the Sahrawi people would never renounce their inalienable right to self-determination and independence and would continue to use all legitimate means, including armed struggle, to defend their sacred rights and restore sovereignty over the entire territory of the Sahrawi Republic.
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