Russia vetoed a US-drafted resolution on Western Sahara at the Security Council on Friday, leaving the UN peacekeeping mission there \u200bwithout a renewed mandate just a day before it expires.<\/p>\n
The resolution would have extended the mission for another year while cementing Morocco’s autonomy plan as the only basis \u200cfor talks to settle the half-century-old conflict and scaling back its military component.<\/p>\n
The council then defeated a rival Russian resolution to extend the mission for a year. That draft got 2 votes in favor and 1 against, with 11 abstentions, failing to get the nine affirmative votes needed to pass.<\/p>\n
The showdown threatens the future of a mission the council has routinely renewed for decades and deepens a dispute over the territory, most of which is controlled by Morocco but \u200bclaimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state.<\/p>\n
Morocco’s royal palace welcomed the failure to renew the mission, saying its personnel and equipment should leave Western Sahara in the \u200bcoming days. Morocco said it remained committed to the ceasefire in the territory. Polisario representative Sidi Omar thanked Russia for vetoing the US-backed resolution, which he \u2060said would “torpedo the foundations of the UN peace process” and “threaten regional and international peace”.<\/p>\n
Unless the Security Council agrees to a last-minute extension, the mandate for the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, \u200bknown as MINURSO, will expire on October 31.<\/p>\n
Algeria’s foreign ministry expressed regret on Saturday over the failure to renew MINURSO’s mandate, criticising what it described as the excessive bias of the US-drafted resolution towards Morocco.<\/p>\n
Oxfam \u200bwarned that losing the mission could put refugees at risk. Hostilities have persisted at low levels since Polisario said in November 2020 that it was resuming “armed struggle”.<\/p>\n
Last year, the Security Council dealt a blow to Polisario’s ambitions when it backed Morocco’s autonomy proposal as a basis for resolving the conflict and asked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to submit a review of the peacekeeping mission.<\/p>\n
The failed US resolution would have gone further, removing the reference to a referendum from the \u200bmission’s name, renaming it the United Nations Mission in Western Sahara, or MINUSO.<\/p>\n
Following the vote, US Ambassador Michael Waltz said a referendum had never taken place because of longstanding disagreements over voter eligibility.<\/p>\n
“UN \u200bofficials have been telling us this reality for 30 years,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, some members of this Council have used their veto to preserve the letter ‘R’ for referendum in the mission’s name, even though the United Nations has not \u200cbeen preparing \u2060to hold such a vote for decades,” he added.<\/p>\n
France and the UK \u2014 the two other permanent Security Council members \u2014 along with eight non-permanent members, backed the US resolution and Morocco’s autonomy plan.<\/p>\n
MISSION AT RISK<\/strong><\/p>\n Russia said the US draft went too far in endorsing Morocco’s position on the disputed territory.<\/p>\n “We stress the fact that the Security Council cannot automatically predetermine matters relating to sovereignty,” Russia’s UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia said.<\/p>\n “The Security Council must not give a blessing to such a one-sided approach. Therefore we were compelled to block the adoption of the draft,” he said.<\/p>\n With 155 military personnel, the mission, tasked with organizing a referendum as \u200bpart of a UN-brokered ceasefire, is set to \u200bcost $62 million in the fiscal year that started \u2060in June this year, according to a UN Secretary-General report.<\/p>\n “The loss of MINURSO\u2019s monitoring and de-escalation functions risks undermining security and stability, with serious consequences to civilians and prospects of a peaceful resolution,” Oxfam said in reaction to the vote.<\/p>\n While most Sahrawis live in Morocco-ruled Western Sahara, tens of thousands are estimated \u200bto be living in Polisario-run refugee camps in Algeria.<\/p>\n The vetoed US resolution called for a census of the refugees.<\/p>\n UNITY DAY<\/strong><\/p>\n Morocco’s royal palace said the \u200bnon-renewal of the mission was \u2060a “significant development” and that it meant the Western Sahara issue should be withdrawn from consideration by the Security Council.<\/p>\n “The non-renewal of MINURSO’s mandate clearly means that the presence of the mission in the Kingdom’s southern provinces, including its personnel, vehicles, equipment and symbols, should come to an end in the coming days,” the palace said in a statement.<\/p>\n In Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara, streets were decorated with Moroccan flags and lights \u2060to prepare to \u200bcelebrate \u201cUnity Day\u201d, a holiday the palace declared to commemorate last year\u2019s UN Security Council vote on October 31.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, the \u200bPolisario staged a rally at the Smara camp near the town of Tindouf, in southern Algeria.<\/p>\n A couple hundred men and women, waving flags of the Polisario’s self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, gathered near Polisario fighters in military fatigues, waving signs with slogans \u200bsuch as “No to Morocco’s autonomy plan. Yes to the right to self-determination”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A couple hundred men and women, waving flags of the Polisario’s self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, gathered near Polisario fighters in military fatigues, waving signs with slogans \u200bsuch as “No to Morocco’s autonomy plan. Yes to the right to self-determination”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1659,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,31,33,1129],"tags":[1463,5596,510,373,182,239],"class_list":["post-22482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-north-africa","category-politics","category-security","tag-antonio-guterres","tag-minuso","tag-polisario-front","tag-russia","tag-un-security-council","tag-western-sahara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22483,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22482\/revisions\/22483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}