Morocco’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Omar Hilale, affirmed that Security Council Resolution 2797 marks a decisive turning point, moving the UN from merely managing the Moroccan Sahara question to actively resolving it.
Speaking before the UN Fourth Committee, Hilale described the resolution as an “irreversible tipping point” that enshrines Morocco’s Autonomy Initiative as the sole basis for a political settlement, firmly placing it under Moroccan sovereignty.”
For the first time, the Council explicitly framed autonomy within the Kingdom’s territorial integrity and called on the four parties — Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario — to engage in good-faith negotiations without preconditions.
The resolution has already enabled three rounds of direct talks in Washington and Madrid, where Morocco presented a detailed autonomy statute outlining executive, legislative and judicial powers. “This autonomy reconciles political realism, democratic governance and the aspirations of the populations,” Hilale stressed.
He underlined that the historic momentum demands every party assume its responsibility: implement the resolution, negotiate without preconditions, act in good faith, honor commitments and restore the ceasefire.
Beyond politics, Hilale highlighted the human cost, noting that populations in the Tindouf camps — the world’s second-longest refugee crisis — deserve durable solutions under international law.
Hilale firmly rejected outdated claims of “decolonization” or referendum, recalling that the Sahara returned to Morocco half a century ago through the Green March and Madrid Accords, and that the Security Council buried the referendum idea 25 years ago.
True representatives of the Sahara are its democratically elected officials, not an armed group that usurps the voice of camp residents.
Resolution 2797, he concluded, opens the path to a definitive settlement and a new era of Maghreb cooperation, regional stability and shared prosperity.