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Rabat – Spain has responded to Colombia’s request that the separatist Polisario Front be granted an “observer status” at the Ibero-American Summit.
On March 26, Colombia’s Pro-Polisario president Gustavo Petro asked Spain to invite the Polisario Front to the summit.
In response to the request, Spain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Manuel Albares stressed that such a status is only reserved for recognized states.
“Anyone has the right to make statements, but this status is reserved for states duly recognized by the United Nations,” Europa Press quoted Albares as saying.
Madrid’s decision is expected to trigger more frustration among Polisario and its supporters – particularly Algeria.
The Algerian regime was among first pro-Polisario regimes that condemned Spain’s decision to endorse Morocco’s Autonomy Plan as the most serious and credible basis to end the dispute over Western Sahara.
The Algerian regime’s frustration also affected the friendship treaty between Algiers and Madrid, which Algeria froze following the Spanish endorsement of Morocco’s autonomy initiative.
Petro’s request also comes after Colombia’s government announced the re-establishment of diplomatic ties with the Algeria-based self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in August 2022.
The announcement came a few days after the presidential inauguration of Petro, a former member of Colombia’s M19 guerilla group — which transformed into a political party in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Many Colombian senators and other high-ranking figures in the South American country vehemently rejected Presiden Pedro’s decision to re-establish ties with the separatist group, describing the move as contrary to Colombian strategic interests.
Sixty-two out of 108 senators have voted against the decision to restore diplomatic ties with Polisario.
“We, the undersigned, the senators, express our categorical rejection and absolute disagreement with the position taken by the Ministry of Foreign Relations on August 10, 2022, which confirmed the validity of the joint statement signed on February 27, 1985” with the Polisario, the senators stressed in statement.
Colombia’s complex history with Polisario
They warned of the “dire consequences” of supporting the separatist front, emphasizing that President Petro’s condoning of Polisario’s separatist aspirations are contrary to Colombia’s foreign policy guidelines and may have “destroyed the excellent relations that have always united us with Morocco and which we hope to continue.”
Colombia first established ties with the Polisario Front in 1985 under Belisario Bentancur, who was the country’s president from 1982 to 1986. But the South American country disavowed the separatist group in 2001, taking considerable steps to instead establish and cement diplomatic relations with Morocco.
Between 2019 and 2021, several Colombian politicians — senior ministers and senators, especially — traveled to Morocco and emphasized their country’s support of the North African kingdom’s territorial integrity and sovereignty claim to the Western Sahara region.
While on a working visit to Rabat in late October 2021, Colombia’s Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs officially expressed the South American country’s support for Morocco’s Autonomy Plan.
A few days later, the country’s then Foreign Affairs Minister, Marta Lucia Ramirez, described Morocco’s Autonomy Plan as the most realistic basis to end the conflict over Western Sahara. In particular, the top Colombian diplomat stressed her country’s support for the “supreme interests of Morocco and respect for its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
With most recent developments pointing at a deep-seated willingness within the Colombian foreign policy establishment to cement ties with Morocco, observers argue that the South American country’s re-normalization of ties with Polisario will most probably not outlive Petro’s presidency.
