The United Nations Security Council has adopted a U.S.-backed resolution supporting Morocco’s sovereignty claim over Western Sahara, despite strong opposition from Algeria.
Although Friday’s vote revealed divisions among member states, the resolution provides the strongest endorsement yet for Morocco’s plan to maintain sovereignty over the disputed territory — a plan also backed by most EU countries and a growing number of African allies, The Guardian reports.
The resolution describes Morocco’s proposal as the basis for negotiation. Similar to previous years’ texts, it makes no reference to a referendum on self-determination — an option long favored by the pro-independence Polisario Front and its allies, including Algeria, Russia, and China.
Western Sahara, a phosphate-rich strip of coastal desert roughly the size of the U.S. state of Colorado, was under Spanish control until 1975. The territory is claimed both by Morocco and the Polisario Front, which operates from refugee camps in southwestern Algeria and claims to represent the Sahrawi people, the Indigenous inhabitants of the disputed region.
Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, called the vote “historic,” saying it would “build momentum toward a long-overdue, lasting peace in Western Sahara.”
