French website: This is how Morocco is pressing to support its plan for autonomy in Western Sahara

Under the title "Western Sahara Rabat exerts pressure to support its autonomy plan," France Info radio website said that Morocco recently mobilized Spain to its cause after the United States and Germany.

The website added that it is the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez who will personally come to Morocco to ratify this “new phase” raised by Madrid, on March 18, 2022, by aligning with the Moroccan position on Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony whose fate is the source of the crisis between Algeria and Rabat since 1975.

 Pedro Sanchez is expected to visit "the next few days" in Rabat at the invitation of King Mohammed VI, according to a press release from the royal court. The visit of the Spanish Chief of Diplomacy, Jose Manuel Alparís, which was tentatively scheduled for 1 April 2022, has been rescheduled to the same date as the Prime Minister's visit.

The French website went on to say that the shift in the Spanish position, after a year of estrangement, was welcomed in Morocco as a "diplomatic blow." Spain radically changed its position by supporting the autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty proposed by Rabat in 2007, now viewing the Moroccan initiative as “the most serious, realistic and credible basis” for resolving the conflict.

This resounding announcement came after a diplomatic crisis that began in April 2021 with Spain receiving the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, the archenemy of Rabat, for treatment from Covid-19, and the crisis reached its climax a month later with the arrival of about a thousand immigrants of Moroccan origin within a few hours to the enclave. Spain to Ceuta, on the northern coast of Morocco, thanks to the easing of border controls on the Moroccan side.

 For the Spanish prime minister, the shift in Madrid was necessary to establish a “harder” relationship with Morocco, the main trading partner and “strategic” ally in the fight against irregular migration.

Europe is called to align itself with Spain

Western Sahara extends over an area of ​​266,000 square kilometers and is located on the Atlantic coast and is bordered by Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria. Almost desert, it is rich in phosphates and its 1,100 km coastline is full of fish. It has been cut from north to south since the eighties by a "defense wall", as the Moroccan authorities who built it called it, reminds France-Info.

 The former colony is considered a "Non-Self-Governing Territory" by the United Nations in the absence of a final settlement. It is the only region on the African continent whose post-colonial status remains unresolved. Morocco controls 80% and offers autonomy under its sovereignty, while the separatists of the Polisario Front, with the support of Algeria, are demanding a referendum on self-determination, the French website indicates.

 Today - says the French website - Algiers appears isolated, analysts say, and the United Nations has been struggling to re-launch a political dialogue suspended since 2019. Since Washington recognized the “Moroccanism” of Western Sahara in December 2020, in exchange for the resumption of relations with Israel, Rabat has intensified its efforts to urge The international community to emulate the American model.

After receiving his American counterpart, Anthony Blinken, who reiterated the United States' support for this file, on March 29, 2022, the head of Moroccan diplomacy, Nasser Bourita, called on Europe to "get out of its comfort zone" and follow Spain's example by supporting the autonomy plan. This appeal is accompanied by a warning "for those who display ambiguous or contradictory positions". Moroccan King Mohammed VI had warned in a speech to the nation last November that "Morocco will not enter into any economic or commercial approach with them that would exclude the Moroccan Sahara."

Rabat depends on the balance of power

The French website quotes analysts as confirming that Morocco is determined to settle the endless conflict in Western Sahara, which it opposes with the Algerian-backed Sahrawi separatists, even at the expense of the dispute with its allies. As for the kingdom, the Western Sahara - which it calls its “southern provinces” - has historically been part of its territory, and it is “an established fact that will never be on the agenda of any negotiations,” according to King Mohammed VI.

 Khadija Mohsen Faynan, a professor of political science, noted that “the Moroccan diplomatic attack is taking place at a time when all eyes are on Ukraine. And this is also done at the end of a long process of making Morocco itself indispensable to Westerners: immigration, flight over its territory, security and the fight against Islamists.”

While Maghreb historian Pierre Vermein believes that “the Moroccans have learned the lessons of current geopolitics to the fullest. The balance of power has become the norm at the expense of international law.”

In proof of its desire to free itself from all oversight in the name of its interests, Morocco did not participate in the two votes of the United Nations General Assembly condemning Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine, in order to avoid angering Russia, a member of the UN Security Council, according to analysts. Morocco's position has disappointed its partners, according to a Western diplomatic source.

In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky decided to recall his ambassador to Morocco, Oksana Vasilieva, saying that she was "wasting her time" in Rabat.