UN Security Council Holds Closed-Door Meeting on Western Sahara

Rabat – The UN Security Council held a closed-door meeting on the Western Sahara conflict on Wednesday, October 13.

Members of the Security Council received a briefing from the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for the Sahara, Alexander Ivanko, as well as the Assistant Secretary-General for Africa in the Department of political Affairs of the UN Secretariat, Martha Pobee, diplomatic sources told Moroccan state media.

The consultations were held following the appointment of Italian-Swedish diplomat Staffan de Mistura as the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy for Western Sahara.

De Mistura is set to start officiating in his new position in early November.

The consultations also come a few weeks ahead of the adoption of a new resolution that will extend the mandate of MINURSO, the UN’s peacekeeping operation in Western Sahara.

The talks are also being held amid threats from the Polisario Front, which continues to agitate for war despite repeated UN warnings.

On October 13, the Polisario Front’s leader, Brahim Ghali, asserted that the “war will not stop.” 

He claimed that the consequences of the “renewed war” between the separatist group and Morocco “will affect the entire region” if the UN continues to “manage the conflict instead of resolving it.”

Ghali’s threats came merely days after a UNSG report urged all parties to the Sahara conflict to show restraint and avoid any escalations that might jeopardize the political process for a compromise-based solution to the dispute.

The Polisario’s war threats are also in violation of the ceasefire agreement and international laws, and the UN has consistently underscored the need for calm.

In his latest report, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres confirmed the Polisario’s violations, particularly in Guerguerat near the Moroccan-Mauritanian border.

MINSURSO’s Reconnaissance operations identified the Polisario’s presence in the buffer zone.

Since October of last year, about 12 members of the Polisario Front, wearing military uniforms, have been identified in the buffer zone, and MINURSO observers have also identified the presence of “eight military vehicles, two of which were equipped with heavy weapons,” the report noted.