The Moroccan Initiative for negotiation towards an autonomy statute for the Sahara region "is a positive approach" that would consolidate Morocco's political credibility at the international scene, said Belgian Secretary of State for European Affairs, Didier Donfut.
Speaking at a press briefing, here Thursday, the Belgian official said the international community hopes to find a solution to this problem under the aegis of the United Nations, on the basis of dialog between the parties, noting that "with much maturity," Morocco presented an initiative in a bid to advance this issue.
With this initiative, Mr. Donfut said, the kingdom "gives impetus to this issue and has created a new condition that should allow the United Nations to seize its proposal" on the path to settle this problem.
The European Union, underlined the Belgian official, gives great importance to settling this issue all the more reason that Morocco, as a strategic partner of Europe, is called to play a major role in the region of the southern shore of the Mediterranean.
Commenting on the initiative, President of the foreign relations and defense commission at the Belgian Senate, Roelants du Vivier François said, Wednesday, that Morocco had presented a “clear and complete” initiative.
At the end of a meeting with the Secretary General of the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs, Maouelainin Ben Khalihanna Maouelainin, the Belgian official said the Moroccan proposal is “open to negotiation, which, once approved by the populations concerned, would settle a problem that has long lasted and which poisons the relations of the whole region.”
Morocco presented, on April 11, to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Morocco's draft plan of autonomy for the Sahara that Morocco has devised in a bid to solve the three-decade-old dispute with the Polisario over the Sahara. The former Spanish colony was ceded by Spain to Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid Accord.