Security Council Refuses Inclusion of Western Sahara in Annual Meeting With AU

New York – The Security Council has shown once again that it is not ready to accept the involvement of any other organization in the settlement of the Western Sahara, in particular the African Union.

Thanks to Egypt, which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month, the Sahara issue was not on the agenda of the annual meeting between the UN Security Council and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, which took place Monday afternoon in New York.

A similar position was taken by the Chinese Ambassador in April.

The maneuver made by the African Union to include the Sahara issue was, thus, thwarted following China and Egypt’s rejection of the proposal made by the AU on April 14 to include the Sahara dispute in the agenda of the annual meeting.

In a letter sent to the African Union on April 25, the Chinese Ambassador, who held the rotating presidency of the Council in April, said that Security Council members prefer to have a more focused agenda with a manageable number of topics to ensure that there is enough time for meaningful discussion on each topic.

And in another letter addressed to the AU on May 13, Egypt stated that there was no agreement among the members of the Security Council for the inclusion of Western Sahara in the agenda, according to the New York-based nongovernmental organization Security Council Report.

During the intense negotiations that preceded the adoption of Resolution 2285 to renew the mandate of the UN mission in the Western Sahara, known as MINURSO, Egypt, along with France, Spain and Senegal, played an important role in thwarting the attempts by some countries supportive of the Polisario to adopt a resolution against Morocco.