Carles Puigdemont puts the status of Sebta and Melilla back at the centre of the Spanish debate. The former Catalan president calls the two cities “colonies” located in Morocco and proposes submitting their belonging to Spain to a referendum.
Facing recent diplomatic setbacks and growing international support for Morocco’s autonomy plan, Brahim Ghali calls for general mobilization. The leader denounces a coordinated offensive aimed at undermining the population’s right to self-determination.
Mired in a major budgetary crisis and confronted with new diplomatic balances, the UN mission in Western Sahara sees its future threatened. A profound reassessment of its security role seems inevitable before October.
Under the auspices of the United States, Morocco, Algeria and the Polisario Front discussed a revised autonomy plan for Western Sahara. This process implicitly marks the abandonment of the option of a self-determination referendum.
Morocco outlines its autonomy plan for the Sahara . The proposal provides for a regional government under royal authority and a national referendum, immediately ruling out any international supervision or independence option.
Following Security Council Resolution 2797, Rabat has transformed its 2007 political initiative into a true constitutional corpus . This 40-page technical document, led by the royal advisors, outlines an institutional architecture inspired by the Spanish and New Caledonian models, while setting inviolable red lines on sovereignty.
While Algeria, the protector of the Polisario, is striving to have the "right to self-determination" and the referendum recognized, Italy did not in any way support the Algerian position during the visit of Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to Rome. Will Italy follow in the footsteps of the United States, Spain, Portugal and France in recognizing the Moroccanness of the Sahara?
In the eyes of Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the autonomy plan "under Moroccan sovereignty" defended by Rabat is "a French idea, not a Moroccan one".
After accusing Morocco of being behind his departure from the United Nations Mission for the Organization of a Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) in 2017, American diplomat Christopher Ross is back on the attack. He has always supported the Polisario, Algeria’s protégé, against the kingdom.
The Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, has again spoken about the relations between Morocco and Algeria. These relations are not the best, acknowledges the Moroccan diplomat, while hoping to see the two countries in better terms.
Libya and the Sahara were at the heart of the remarks made by the Algerian President, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, last Saturday, in front of the high-ranking officers of the army.