Polisario Front: Moroccan King on Western Sahara ‘fabrication and illusions’

The Polisario Front described, on Sunday, Moroccan King Mohammed VI’s statements on Western Sahara as “fabrications and illusions”, after he stressed that Morocco “does not negotiate” over the disputed Western Sahara between Rabat and the separatists.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Oued Eddahab (Polisario) considered what was mentioned in the Moroccan King’s speech were “fabrications and illusions to justify intransigence and recklessness”, in a statement reported by the Algerian News Agency (APS).

The Moroccan monarch had said in a speech on Saturday that “the Moroccan-ness of the Sahara has never been, and will never be, on the negotiating table.”

He said that Rabat is “negotiating to find a peaceful solution to this artificial regional conflict,” but he reiterated the Kingdom’s rejection of the independence of Western Sahara.

The Polisario Front warned in a statement that “the Sahrawi people, who accepted permanent peace with the Kingdom of Morocco by signing the settlement plan in 1991, after 16 years of war, will not stop their struggle until Morocco ends its aggression and illegal occupation of the territory of the Sahrawi Republic.”

In its statement, the Polisario considered that “the King of Morocco is well aware that the Sahrawi Republic, the neighbour of the Kingdom of Morocco, is an irreversible and insurmountable fact, and Morocco is sitting by its side in multilateral forums at the continental and international levels.”

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Polisario, backed by Algeria, demands the organization of a referendum for self-determination in Western Sahara, approved by the United Nations when the ceasefire agreement was signed in September 1991, while Rabat, backed by Paris and Washington, rejects any solution outside autonomy under its sovereignty in this vast region of 266,0002 km.

Last week, the UN Security Council called on the parties to the conflict to resume negotiations “without preconditions and in good faith.”

The Security Council stressed the need to resume negotiations in order to “reach a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution” with the aim of “determining the fate of the people of Western Sahara.”

The King’s speech came at a time of great tension, which has intensified in the past few days, after Algeria accused Morocco of bombing two Algerian trucks and killing three of its citizens in desert lands on 1 November.

In a statement, the Algerian Presidency stressed that “their assassination will not go unpunished,” praising the “three innocent victims of an act of state terrorism.”

On Sunday, the bodies of the three Algerian nationals were transferred from a hospital in Tindouf (southwest) to the states from which they come, for burial, according to the Algerian agency.

The Moroccan monarch did not mention this incident in his speech on the occasion of the forty-sixth anniversary of the “Green March”.

On 6 November 1975, 350,000 Moroccans responded to the call of their King Hassan II, and marched towards the Western Sahara, which was under the rule of the Spanish colonizer, with the aim of regaining control over it.