Moroccan press says UNSC resolution 1871 'breakthrough,' 'success' for Morocco

The United Nation Security Council (UNSC) resolution 1871 on Moroccan Sahara, adopted unanimously by the council members on April 30, is a "breakthrough" and a "new success" for Morocco, Moroccan press reports issued on Monday said.

   "Resolution 1871, approved unanimously by the Council members, is an unprecedented breakthrough in the Sahara issue," French-language daily, Le Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb, said.

   The adoption of this new resolution evidences the UNSC's will to find a settlement to the issue and overcome "the procrastination tactics and the obstacles" that Algeria keeps imposing, the paper underlines.

   Al Bayane - mouthpiece of Socialism and Progress Party (PPS - government) - deemed that with the adoption of the resolution 1871, Morocco registered a new diplomatic achievement in the Sahara issue, adding that the resolution reaffirms the Council's endorsement of all the provisions of resolution 1813 of April 13, 2008, by putting UN action and the efforts of the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on the path of continuity.

   The French-speaking paper added that attempts by Algeria and the Polisario separatist movement to bring negotiations to an impasse are "totally excluded by the Security Council," who described the north African Kingdom's efforts as “serious and credible” reiterating the call for substantive negotiations on the basis of realism and the spirit of compromise, and stressing the need "to take into account Morocco's efforts since 2006."

   In the same vein, Arabic-language daily, Al Alam of the ruling Istiqlal party, said the resolution is a "bitter failure for Algerian diplomacy and the Polisario separatists," thus putting "the final nail in the coffin of the referendum," and reaffirming "the pertinence of Morocco's autonomy initiative." 

   "By considering, once more, the initiative and Morocco's efforts to find a lasting, political and mutually acceptable solution, as "serious and credible," the Council not only reaffirmed the "preeminence of the Moroccan autonomy Initiative," and confirmed the centrality of serious, transparent and substantive negotiations. It also implicitly rejected Algeria's stances on the Sahara issue, according to Al Alam's French version, L'Opinion.

   For Rissalat Al Oumma, mouthpiece of the opposition Constitutional Union party, "the ball is in the Algerian court," especially as the UNSC called on Algiers to cooperate, not only with the United Nations, but also with Morocco in order to find a realistic political solution to the conflict over the Moroccan Sahara.

   For its part, Al Mounaâtaf, which speaks in the name of the party of the Front of the Democratic Forces (FFD – opposition), wrote that the new resolution refuted the maneuvers of Algeria and its protégé, Polisario, for a backward step in the issue, and further reinforced the process launched, since April 2007, thanks to Morocco's initiative to grant autonomy to its southern provinces.

MAP