It is the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez who will come to Morocco himself to ratify this “New stage” that Madrid evoked, on March 18, 2022, rallying there the Moroccan position on Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony whose fate has opposed Algiers and Rabat since 1975. Pedro Sanchez is expected “in the very next few days” in Rabat, at the invitation of King Mohammed VI, according to a press release from the royal cabinet. A visit by the head of Spanish diplomacy José Manuel Albares, initially scheduled for April 1, 2022, has been rescheduled to the same date as that of the Prime Minister.
The Spanish turnaround, after a year of estrangement, was hailed as a “diplomatic coup” by Moroccans. Spain made a radical change of position by supporting the autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty proposed in 2007 by Rabat, now considering the Moroccan initiative “as the most serious, realistic and credible basis” to resolve the dispute.
This resounding announcement came after a diplomatic crisis, triggered in April 2021 by the reception in Spain, for treatment of Covid-19, of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, sworn enemy of Rabat. Its climax was, a month later, the arrival of some 10,000 migrants of Moroccan origin in a few hours in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, on the northern coast of Morocco, thanks to a relaxation of the border surveillance on the Moroccan side.
For the Spanish Prime Minister, the Madrid turn was necessary to establish a relationship “more solid” with Morocco, a major trading partner and ally “strategic” in the fight against illegal immigration.
Western Sahara extends over 266,000 km² located on the Atlantic coast and is bordered by Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria. Almost desert, it is rich in phosphates and its coastline, 1,100 km long, is full of fish. Cut from North to South since the 1980s by a “defense wall”as the Moroccan authorities who erected it call it, it has more than half a million inhabitants.
The former colony is considered a “non-autonomous territory” by the United Nations in the absence of a final settlement. It is the only territory 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, supported by Algeria, are calling for a referendum on self-determination.
Today, Algiers appears isolated, analysts report, and the UN is struggling to relaunch a political dialogue suspended since 2019. Since the recognition of the “Moroccanness” of Western Sahara by Washington in December 2020, in return for the resumption of its relations with Israel, Rabat urges the international community to follow the American example.
Thus, after having received his American counterpart Antony Blinken who reiterated the support of the United States on this file, the head of Moroccan diplomacy Nasser Bourita invited on March 29, 2022 Europe to “get out of your comfort zone” and, like Spain, to endorse the autonomy plan. This appeal is coupled with a warning “to those who display vague or ambivalent positions”. In an address to the nation in November, Mohammed VI warned that “Morocco would not enter into any economic or commercial approach with them that would exclude the Moroccan Sahara”.
Morocco is determined to settle in its favor the interminable conflict in Western Sahara which opposes it to the Sahrawi separatists supported by Algeria, even at the cost of a falling out with its allies, analysts believe. For the Cherifian kingdom, Western Sahara – which it calls its “southern provinces” – has historically been part of its territory, a “immutable truth” who “will never be on the agenda of any negotiation”according to King Mohammed VI.
“The Moroccan offensive is taking place at a time when all eyes are on Ukraine”, observes political scientist Khadija Mohsen-Finan. “It is also done at the end of a long process consisting for Morocco in making itself indispensable to Westerners: migration, overflight of the territory, security and the fight against Islamism”, she adds. In the eyes of Maghreb historian Pierre Vermeren, “Moroccans have learned the lessons of current geopolitics perfectly. The balance of power has become the norm to the detriment of international law”.
Proof of its desire to free itself from all supervision in the name of its interests, Morocco did not participate in the two votes of the UN General Assembly condemning Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine, in order to avoid not alienate Russia, a member of the UN Security Council, according to analysts. Morocco’s position has “highly disappointed” its partners, according to a Western diplomatic source, “in view of the seriousness of Russian aggression and in respect of its traditional alliances with Western countries, to which it preferred a rapprochement with Russia, which is nevertheless favorable to the Polisario Front”.
In reaction, the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, decided to recall his ambassador to Morocco, Oksana Vassilieva, judging that she “wasting his time” Flap.