New York, April 30, 2018 (SPS) - The resolution extending the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) by six months represents a turning point in the handling of the Sahrawi issue by the Security Council, said M’Hamed Khedad, the Sahrawi coordinator with MINURSO.
“It is a turning point in terms of the interest attached by the Security Council and international community to the solution of the conflict,” Kheddad told APS.
“The votes of the majority of the Security Council’s members are in the right direction, support the efforts of the UN Secretary General’s personal envoy and call to the implementation of the Council’s resolutions reaffirming the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination,” he added.
The most important thing in this resolution, he added, is the call of the Security Council to the resumption of the UN process and the holding of a fifth round of negotiations “without prerequisites and in good faith.”
The emissary Horst Kohler will take advantage of the six-month period to put back negotiations on the rails, said Kheddad.
The Sahrawi coordinator underlined that the Council “wants to put an end to the status quo in Western Sahara that Morocco and France want it to perpetuate by trying, each time, to postpone it.” (SPS)
062/SPS/APS