Ambassador Permanent Representative of Morocco to the UN, Omar Hilale affirmed, before the members of the Committee of 24 (C24) of the UN, that the Moroccanness of the Sahara has been irreversibly sealed since 1975 by virtue of the Agreement of Madrid.
“I would like to reiterate once again that the decolonization of the Saharan provinces of Morocco has been definitively and irreversibly sealed since their return to their motherland, in 1975, under the Madrid Agreement”Hilale pointed out at the C24 annual meeting.
He noted that well before this Agreement, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had confirmed the Moroccanness of the Sahara, stating in its advisory opinion that the Sahara was not terra nullius at the time of its occupation by Spain in 1884. and that legal ties of allegiance, and therefore of sovereignty, have always existed between the Sultans of Morocco and the tribes of the Moroccan Sahara.
The diplomat added that the question of the Moroccan Sahara is examined by the Security Council, under Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter, as a regional dispute between Morocco and Algeria, noting that as a result, only the Security Council is empowered to make recommendations and advocate a solution to this regional dispute, which it does every year through its resolutions, including 2654, adopted in October 2022.
This resolution reaffirmed the four irreversible parameters of the solution to the question of the Moroccan Sahara, in this case: the solution to the dispute over the southern provinces of Morocco can only be “political, realistic, pragmatic, sustainable and compromise”insisted on recalling the ambassador, stressing that the alleged “settlement plan” And “referendum” to which some desperately cling have been definitively buried by the Security Council and the Secretary-General of the United Nations for more than two decades.
Hilale said, in this regard, that the second parameter is the Moroccan Autonomy Initiative, the perfect embodiment of this solution within the framework of the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of the Kingdom, noting that the Security Council has continuously called it serious and credible in all its resolutions, since its presentation in 2007.
This initiative has since gained international support, since more than 100 Member States of the United Nations, representing all regions of the world, the vast majority of whom are present at this meeting, consider it as the one and only basis for the settlement of this dispute, pointed out Hilale, stressing that this international recognition of the Moroccanness of the Sahara has been reinforced by the opening by 28 countries and regional organizations of their Consulates General in Laayoune and Dakhla.
With regard to the third parameter, he indicated that the round tables, in their same format and with the same four participants, including Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania, are the only framework for carrying the political process to its conclusion. culmination.
Regarding the fourth parameter, the Ambassador indicated that the Security Council has anchored, in its successive resolutions, Algeria as the main party to this regional dispute, which it created and which it maintains by calling it expressly to participate in the round tables. “Unfortunately, Algeria continues to reject the resolutions of the Security Council and to refuse the return to the round tables, thus blocking the political process”, he regretted.
The Ambassador Permanent Representative of Morocco to the UN concluded by reaffirming an unshakable evidence and reality: “The Sahara has always been Moroccan. He is Moroccan. He will remain Moroccan until the end of time”.