More than a decade after the king’s official visit to the Southern Moroccan provinces, since he accessed the Throne in 1999, this potential upcoming visit, comes right before the Security Council starts its yearly routine discussions about the Sahara Affair, and specifically the renewal of the MINURSO mandate.
After the UN General Secretary, Mr. Ban Ki Moon, submitted a report to the Security Council, King Mohammed VI phoned this latter and expressed the Moroccan discomfort about some of the report’s content, particularly that Mr. Ban Ki Moon included in his report the necessity to “establish a permanent, independent and neutral Human Rights monitoring”; the thing that would highly undermine the Moroccan sovereignty over its territories, unless this “Monitoring” mechanism is meant to be the national Human Rights Council, which has already established three of its regional committees in the Southern provinces.
King Mohammed VI reiterated, during his phone conversation, as reported by the Royal Palace spokesman, that “the ongoing negotiation’s framework shall be maintained as previously established by the Security Council” before adding that “the UN should avoid taking any “biased approach” regarding this affair”. Otherwise, as various Moroccan experts in this affair commented “Morocco may even pushed it further and pulls out the dossier from the UN, by unwelcoming the MINURSO mission on its territories”; this in fact has been advocated by the traditional USFP leader, Mr. El Yazghi.
Worth mentioning that the recent UN report, submitted to the Security Council, also mentioned the “showed interest by the African Union to contribute to solving the Sahara issue”; however, this idea is principally rejected by the kingdom, as it does not consider the AU as a neutral mediator.
The Moroccan Times
