Rabat – Russia has stressed it supports a “just and sustainable solution” to the Western Sahara dispute with respect to UN Security Council resolutions, reassuring Morocco ahead of the security council briefing session with the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) on April 20.
Russia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Vershinin discussed this week the latest developments on the Western Sahara dispute with Morocco’s Ambassador in Moscow Lotfi Bouchaara.
As a veto-holder at the UN Security Council, Russia will participate in the coming security council briefing session.
Special representative for Western Sahara and head of MINURSO Alexander Ivanko and the personal envoy of the UN Secretary-General Staffan de Mistura are expected to brief the council’s members on the mission’s achievements ahead of its mandate expiration on October 31.
Vershinin and Bouchaara additionally reviewed the situation in Ukraine.
“The Russian side gave detailed explanations on the goals and objectives of the special military operation in Ukraine,” the Russian ministry said in a press release on Tuesday.
Latest Russian stance on the Western Sahara dispute
This March, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Morocco and Algiers. His Moroccan visit came after the “historic” Negev summit in Israel.
In Rabat, Blinken renewed US commitment to support the UN-led political process to the lingering Sahara dispute.
The US officially recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in 2020, leading a wave of official endorsements of the Moroccan Autonomy Plan by other countries, such as Spain in 2022.
In addition to oral support, numerous countries opened diplomatic representations in Morocco’s southern provinces. Dakhla alone hosts 14 general consulates, representing 19 countries.
This international shift in favor of Morocco has raised concerns in Algiers with the government denouncing such diplomatic moves.
In this context, Blinken visited Algiers, following his stop in Rabat, with the objective of increasing Algerian gas shipments to heavily-reliant Europe amid rising Western sanctions and efforts to reduce Europe’s dependency on Russian gas.
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Two days later, the Russian Ambassador to Algiers addressed the Algerian elite and public through an interview with the An-Nahar channel.
Trying to appeal to the government’s primary foreign policy objective, he echoed the Algerian position on the Sahara dispute, noting the confrontation is between Polisario separatists and Morocco which denies the Algerian role in arming, training, funding, and protecting the separatists.
Quickly, some Spanish media presented the ambassador’s statements as a direct endorsement of Polisario separatists.
Moroccan “neutrality” in the Ukrainian war
Since the start of the ongoing Russian military offensive in Ukraine, Morocco has clearly expressed concern over the developments on the ground, calling for immediate conflict resolution to avoid further escalation and bloodshed.
Morocco “reiterates its support for the territorial integrity and national unity of all member states of the United Nations,” the Minister of Foreign Affairs said in a press release in late February.
As a key economic and diplomatic partner of both countries, Morocco reaffirmed its stance on the war in Ukraine on March 2 when it did not participate in voting on the UN Generation Assembly resolution on Russia.
As the war continued to escalate, Moroccan officials in Ukraine continued to coordinate with local authorities to evacuate and repatriate Moroccan nationals.
On March 22, Morocco’s Foreign Affairs Minister Nasser Bourita held consecutive phone calls with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts. Details on the issues discussed were not shared but it is assumed that Morocco is attempting to mediate between Moscow and Kyiv, as it has previously done in Libya.
However, Morocco’s so-called neutrality with regard to the ongoing war in Ukraine did not appeal to president Volodymyr Zelensky who is demanding his ambassadors to push countries to supply Ukraine with weapons, and sanction Russia.
Zelensky, notably, recalled his country’s ambassadors to Morocco and Georgia for failing to convince the two countries to take decisive and punishable measures against Russia.
With the war in Ukraine continuing to escalate, creating a crisis in global fuel and food prices, heavily-impacted Morocco continues to call for a peaceful and political solution to the conflict.
