Declaration of the President Following this Extraordinary Meeting of the Royal Consultative Council for Saharan Affairs

We held this extraordinary round of talks to study the issue, and all the members are, like the rest of the Moroccan people, ready to defend national unity and territorial integrity, and at the same time defend the initiative program presented by Morocco to the United Nations as the ideal, fair and just solution to the Sahara conflict which has lasted over thirty years. All the members are persuaded that this initiative will inevitably be the basis for the final solution to this barren conflict.                               

Q: Mr. President, undoubtedly, you have been aware that the Polisario front has, in its turn, presented an initiative, and that initiative has come to block the Moroccan one.                                                                                          
 A: This initiative is undertaken only to create confusion. It is not an initiative in the real sense of the word, because it has not come up with anything new. Rather, it is an old initiative. The aim behind it is to create confusion around the Moroccan initiative, but, God willing, it will not succeed.                              

Q: So, what do you expect the Security Council will do?
A: First of all, we rely on God and on our rights and legitimacy. We will do our utmost to make sure that all the nations understand, as they have understood the delegations sent by His Majesty the King to over thirty countries, that Morocco has a right to the Sahara and that this right is manifested in the great majority of the inhabitants’ support of unity with Morocco and support of this initiative as the ideal and just one.
What is important is that Sahara people, wherever they are, in the region, in the camps or inside the Polisario front, are at heart within each Sahraoui citizen’s soul wherever he is. And he, as well as the Polisario leadership, knows that the only possible solution to the Sahara conflict is this initiative of self rule, and that sooner or later there will be no other solution or alternative that will satisfy all the parties’ demands as much as this solution will. This is a firm and comprehensive conviction of Sahraoui people, regardless of the United Nations’ stance and regardless of all the matters that have taken place in this conflict.
Sahara people now believe that after 32 years of conflict there is no solution that will guarantee all the parties’ rights as does this self rule initiative within Moroccan sovereignty and in a peaceful and just way.