Algiers (Algeria), Oct 12, 2017 (SPS) - Mohamed Salem Ould Salek, member of the National Secretariat of the Frente POLISARIO and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), said today at a press conference in the Algerian capital, Algiers, that "France is obstructing the holding of a referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara," adding that the same country "prevents through the Security Council that MINURSO fulfill its mandate, which is to organize a referendum for that the Saharawi people can decide their future ".
“It is the French state that provided the Moroccan forces with weapons and ammunition, sending its members of its military staff under the cover of "military consultants" to design the wall of disgrace and shame that divides our land and our people and supervised the stages of its construction.," added Ould Salek.
The Saharawi diplomat said that " France, who pretends to be the “cradle of Human Rights”, is the same country that is preventing the MINURSO mission from ensuring the monitoring and reporting on the human rights in Western Sahara”
Along the same lines, Ould Salek, revealed that France is also working hard at the European Union (EU) level to bypass on the European Court of Justice Verdict of last December that prohibited to the EU and its countries participating in the plunder of Western Sahara’s natural resources because the EU does not recognize sovereignty to Morocco over our country. This historic legal judgment admits that the agreements concluded by the EU with the Kingdom of Morocco do not apply to Western Sahara and its resources since the latter is a distinct country from the Kingdom of Morocco.
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"It is also France who is now putting pressure, side by side with Morocco, to abort the African Union-EU’s Partnership Summit to be held in Abidjan in late November by trying to exclude the Saharawi Republic from participating in the summit," said the head of Saharawi diplomacy, who believes that if the French State "continues to offer its complicity with Morocco, the attempts of the Secretary-General and his envoy would have the same impediments, and therefore, the same negative results."
Finally, the foreign minister said that the obstructions that slow the process of decolonization of Western Sahara come from the Security Council, fomented by a veto state, France. "The position of France contradicts the resolutions of international law and the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice," says Ould Salek. SPS
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