Sahara: Rabat announces a turning point: ‘MINURSO’s mandate has not been renewed’
The Royal Cabinet interprets the decision as marking the end of a 35-year period. Morocco is focusing on autonomy under its own sovereignty and insists that negotiations in their current form must be moved beyond.
Key points
Not merely a diplomatic deadline, but a turning point. This is how the Moroccan Royal Palace interprets the failure to renew the mandate of MINURSO, which, according to a statement from the Royal Cabinet released by the MAP news agency, was not extended by the United Nations Security Council at its meeting on 30 October. For Rabat, this represents “an important development and a significant step towards the definitive closure of the Moroccan Sahara dossier at the United Nations”.
The word on which Morocco emphasises is ‘turning point’. Not merely the conclusion of a mission’s activities, therefore, but a move beyond the political and diplomatic framework that has characterised the dispute for decades. This interpretation has significant implications and is presented in the statement as the dawn of a new era.
The end of the mission, as seen by Rabat
According to the text attributed to the Royal Cabinet, the failure to renew the mandate is expected to result, in the coming days, in the end of MINURSO’s presence in the territories that Rabat refers to as the ‘southern provinces of the Kingdom’, with the withdrawal of personnel, vehicles and equipment.
“A chapter lasting 35 years is coming to an end,” says the government. The mission is described as the legacy of a context that is now a thing of the past: a tool which, according to the Moroccan interpretation, has helped to keep the dispute on the international stage without allowing it to be resolved.
The political message is clear. For Rabat, the time has come not to simply maintain the status quo, but to change the very foundations on which it rests. It is on this point that the communiqué bases its diplomatic demand.
