Rival US and Russian resolutions on Western Sahara fail at UN
The UN Security Council rejected the competing proposals, leaving the peacekeeping mission without an approved extension.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the disputed Western Sahara faces an uncertain future after competing United States and Russian resolutions failed at the UN Security Council.
Russia vetoed the US-backed proposal on Friday, despite support from 11 of the 15 council members, including fellow permanent members France and the United Kingdom.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 items- list 1 of 3A UN protection force must be urgently deployed to Palestine
- list 2 of 3G20 drops group photo as Europeans refuse to stand with Lavrov
- list 3 of 3Algeria’s military deployment to Niger: What’s behind the move?
A rival Russian draft then failed to secure the nine votes needed for adoption, receiving two votes in favour, one against and 11 abstentions.
The mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is due to expire on Saturday unless the council reaches a last-minute agreement.
Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony in northwest Africa. Morocco considers the territory its own while the Algeria-backed Polisario Front seeks to establish an independent state called the Sahrawi Republic.
The UN established MINURSO in 1991 to monitor a ceasefire and prepare a referendum on the territory’s future, but disagreements over who could vote have prevented it from taking place.
The mission has 155 military personnel and is set to cost $62m in the fiscal year that began in June, according to a report by the UN secretary-general.
The US draft would have extended the mission for a year, removed “referendum” from its name and made Morocco’s autonomy proposal the only basis for further talks.
Under that plan, the territory would manage its internal affairs but remain under Moroccan sovereignty.
The council had already made the proposal a basis for negotiations last year and asked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to submit a review of the peacekeeping mission.
US Ambassador Mike Waltz told the council in New York on Friday that the referendum had been stalled for decades.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said at the same meeting that Moscow opposed the draft because it favoured one side.
“We stress the fact that the Security Council cannot automatically predetermine matters relating to sovereignty,” he said.
Russia instead proposed renewing the existing mission without those changes.
Morocco’s royal palace welcomed the failure to renew MINURSO, saying on Friday that UN personnel and equipment should leave the territory in the coming days, and that the Western Sahara issue should now be withdrawn from the Security Council’s consideration. Morocco said it remained committed to the ceasefire.
Sidi Omar, the Polisario Front’s representative at the UN, told reporters on Friday that he welcomed Russia’s veto because the US proposal would undermine Sahrawi self-determination.
Algeria expressed regret on Saturday over the failure to renew MINURSO’s mandate. Its foreign ministry criticised what it described as the US draft’s excessive bias towards Morocco.
The aid group Oxfam warned that losing MINURSO’s “monitoring and de-escalation functions risks undermining security and stability”.
While most Sahrawis live in Moroccan-ruled Western Sahara, tens of thousands are estimated to live in Polisario-run refugee camps in Algeria. The vetoed US resolution called for a refugee census.
Low-level fighting has continued since Polisario said it was resuming armed struggle in 2020.
