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AFP
Ahmed Boukhari (C), the Polisario Front’s representative at the United Nations, speaks to the press after a meeting on March 5, 2016 (AFP Photo/Farouk Batiche).
United Nations (United States) (AFP) – Western Sahara’s separatist Polisario Front urged the UN Security Council on Monday to boost pressure on Morocco to allow expelled UN staffers to return to their mission in the disputed territory.
The council is due to discuss Western Sahara on Tuesday to follow up on a resolution adopted in April that calls for the mission known as MINURSO to be fully restored.
The Polisario Front’s UN representative, Ahmed Boukhari, told reporters that “the resolution has not been implemented” and sent a letter urging the council to obtain “a commitment from Morocco to respect MINURSO’s mandate.”
Morocco this month allowed 25 UN staffers to return to Laayoune, where the MINURSO mission is headquartered, but this represents only about a third of the personnel expelled in March.
Morocco unilaterally cut back the UN staff in angry retaliation over UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s use of the term “occupation” to describe the status of the territory it claims as its own.
Boukhari said the council must send a strong message to Morocco to allow more UN staff to return to Western Sahara and to agree to political talks on the future of the territory.
The UN envoy for Western Sahara, Christopher Ross, has been trying for weeks to set a date for a visit to the region, but no firm date has been announced.
Boukhari argued that inaction was not an option for Western Sahara, which is located in a volatile region with nearby Libya and the Sahel region in turmoil.
“Business as usual is the wrong answer to the Western Sahara case,” he said.
MINURSO was established in 1991 after a ceasefire ended a war that broke out when Morocco sent troops to the former Spanish territory in 1975 and fought Sahrawi rebels of the Algerian-backed Polisario Front.
Morocco maintains that Western Sahara is an integral part of the kingdom despite UN resolutions that task MINURSO with organizing a referendum on self-determination.
The US-drafted resolution backed by 10 of the 15 council members in April stressed “the urgent need” for the mission to return to “its full functionality” after Rabat unilaterally ordered the UN staff to leave.
The resolution stated that if the mission was not fully functioning by the end of July, the council would “consider how best to facilitate the achievement of this goal”.
