Morocco will stay committed to the ceasefire in Western Sahara despite the end of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the territory, the Royal Palace said on Wednesday after King Mohammed VI chaired a meeting in Rabat with the prime minister, a royal adviser and the army chief. The palace described the commitment as voluntary and said it would not change with the departure of the mission, known as MINURSO.
MINURSO, the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, ended after 35 years when the Security Council did not renew its mandate last week; the UN said on Sunday that the mission had come to an end, removing the international presence that had monitored the ceasefire in the dispute between Morocco, which considers the territory its own, and the Algeria backed Polisario Front, which seeks independence for Western Sahara. The king directed the Interior Ministry’s coordination office to manage an orderly liquidation and withdrawal of the mission.
The palace statement was critical of the mission it is helping to wind down, saying MINURSO had proven unable to ensure compliance with the ceasefire and that its initial functions had become outdated. The palace also repeated Rabat’s position that the end of the mission means the withdrawal of the Western Sahara issue from the Security Council’s consideration. Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said in an interview with state media on Saturday that the next step for Rabat would be to remove Western Sahara from the UN decolonisation committee, and said Morocco had the support of two thirds of UN member states for that position. That support figure is the minister’s claim, reported as such.
The practical consequence is a monitoring gap. The 1991 ceasefire framework assumed an international presence on the ground; that presence is now leaving, and the commitment that replaces it is, on Morocco’s own description, voluntary. No statement from the Polisario Front or from Algeria is carried in the sources for this story, and any claim about conditions on the ground should be treated as one party’s account until independently corroborated. Status: announced, a statement of position by the Moroccan Royal Palace.