Morocco’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Omar Hilale, has defended the kingdom’s autonomy initiative as the basis for negotiations on the Sahara, arguing that Security Council Resolution 2797 marked a turning point in international efforts to resolve the decades-long dispute.
Speaking during the Fourth Committee’s ninth meeting at the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, Hilale said the resolution, adopted a year earlier, represented a shift from managing the crisis to pursuing a political settlement.
He described the resolution as an irreversible turning point compared with previous Security Council decisions, saying it placed Morocco’s autonomy initiative at the center of the political process and called on Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario Front to engage in negotiations in good faith and without preconditions.
Hilale said the resolution had paved the way for direct discussions involving the four parties during three rounds of meetings in Washington and Madrid. He added that Morocco had presented a detailed autonomy framework outlining the powers of executive, legislative and judicial institutions.
According to the Moroccan diplomat, the proposal seeks to combine political pragmatism, democratic governance and the aspirations of the local population.
Citing the UN secretary-general’s latest report, Hilale said the discussions had allowed the parties to address concrete parameters for a potential future settlement.
He called on all parties to implement Security Council resolutions, negotiate without preconditions, demonstrate good faith through practical steps, honor their commitments and restore and respect the ceasefire.
“Only under these conditions can the momentum created by Resolution 2797 be sustained and translated into progress toward a successful conclusion,” he said.
Hilale calls for confidence-building and voluntary return
Hilale also framed the resolution as having humanitarian implications, pointing to the situation of people living in camps near Tindouf, Algeria.
He argued that managing the humanitarian consequences of what he described as the world’s second-longest refugee crisis could not continue indefinitely without a durable political solution. Morocco, he said, was calling for the population of the Tindouf camps to benefit from lasting solutions under international law and the principles and practices of the UN refugee agency, including dignified voluntary return.
The ambassador also criticized statements he said contained historical inaccuracies, legal distortions and denials of what Morocco considers the implications of Resolution 2797.
He maintained that the Sahara’s integration into Morocco had been reinforced by the Green March and the 1975 Madrid Accords, which were deposited with the United Nations, and argued that the latest resolution strengthened that integration through an autonomy arrangement under Moroccan sovereignty.
Hilale quoted King Mohammed VI’s October 31, 2025, speech, in which the monarch described the period as a decisive turning point in Morocco’s modern history and called for a unified Morocco extending “from Tangier to Lagouira.”
Morocco disputes interpretations of self-determination
Addressing the principle of self-determination, Hilale argued that its interpretation under international law should not be confined to UN General Assembly Resolution 1514.
He cited Resolutions 1541 and 2625, arguing that they should be read alongside the principle of territorial integrity and the right of peoples to freely determine their political status. He presented Resolution 2797 as supporting negotiations on autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty.
Hilale described good faith as a practical obligation rather than a diplomatic slogan, saying Morocco had demonstrated its commitment by submitting a detailed autonomy proposal in Washington. He called on the other parties to demonstrate comparable willingness to engage.
He also stressed that Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario Front had all participated in the Washington and Madrid discussions as the four parties identified by the Security Council, rather than as observers or third parties.
On the International Court of Justice’s 1975 advisory opinion on the Sahara, Hilale emphasized the court’s finding that legal ties of allegiance existed between Morocco’s sultan and some tribes in the territory before Spanish colonization. He argued that these historical ties supported Morocco’s position on the dispute.
The court’s opinion, however, also concluded that the evidence did not establish territorial sovereignty over the Sahara for Morocco or the Mauritanian entity, and that the legal ties identified did not affect the application of the principle of self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the territory’s population.
Hilale rejected the description of the Sahara as Africa’s “last colony,” arguing that the discussions in Washington and Madrid concerned an autonomy arrangement under Moroccan sovereignty rather than a referendum on the territory’s status.
Hilale challenges Polisario’s claim to representation
The Moroccan envoy also challenged the Polisario Front’s claim to represent the population living in the Tindouf camps, arguing that political representation should derive from free and transparent elections.
He said elected representatives from the Sahara, including those chosen in Morocco’s September 23 legislative elections, should be recognized as legitimate representatives of the region’s population.
Hilale also criticized renewed calls for a referendum, arguing that they overlooked the direction taken by Security Council decisions over the past 25 years. He noted that, according to his reading, recent resolutions adopted by the Fourth Committee had not referred to a referendum.
He said the optimism surrounding Resolution 2797 and the Washington and Madrid discussions could lead to a final settlement of the half-century-old dispute, while also creating the possibility of a new era of regional cooperation, an ambition he linked to King Mohammed VI’s October 2025 speech.
At the end of his address, Hilale reiterated Morocco’s support for the United Arab Emirates’ claim to sovereignty over Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa, islands administered by Iran and claimed by the UAE. He called for support for Abu Dhabi’s efforts to resolve the dispute through direct negotiations or referral to the International Court of Justice.
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