Morocco has welcomed the end of a decades-long UN peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara, after a diplomatic showdown between the US and Russia left the Security Council unable to agree on its future. The council failed on Friday to renew the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (Minurso) after Russia vetoed a US-backed proposal. A rival Russian draft to extend the mission also failed to secure enough votes.
The decision raises questions about the future of Africa's longest territorial dispute and the fragile ceasefire between Morocco, which claims Western Sahara, and the Polisario Front which has been fighting for the territory's independence for more than 50 years. Western Sahara, on Africa's north-west coast, was a Spanish colony until 1975. It has significant phosphate reserves and valuable fishing grounds along its Atlantic coast.
As Spain prepared to withdraw, both Morocco and Mauritania claimed the territory. The International Court of Justice found historical ties of allegiance but no territorial sovereignty that overrode the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination. Morocco's then King Hassan II responded by organising the Green March.
On 6 November 1975 about 350,000 Moroccan civilians entered the territory in a mass demonstration intended to put pressure on Spain. Days later, Spain signed the Madrid Accords with Morocco and Mauritania, agreeing to transfer administrative control. Morocco took the northern two-thirds and Mauritania the southern third.
The agreement did not settle the question of sovereignty. The Polisario Front, an independence movement founded in 1973, opposed the deal. It saw it as replacing Spanish colonial rule with Moroccan and Mauritanian control.
Mauritania renounced its claim in 1979, but Morocco continued fighting Polisario. Algeria became Polisario main regional ally, providing military support and hosting its leadership and thousands of Sahrawi refugees in camps near the city of Tindouf. The North African country says its position is based on the right to self-determination, while Morocco sees Western Sahara as an integral part of its territory.
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