Morocco is "very satisfied" with this resolution, which does not mention the Baker Plan II, nor resolution 1495 of July 2003 related to this plan, in an allusion to the peace plan mooted by the then UN Secretary General's Personal Envoy to the Sahara and former American Secretary of State James Baker, Moroccan deputy Foreign and Cooperation Minister, Taieb Fassi Fihri, told the Spanish news agency "Europapress."
Monday's resolution "confirms the backing of the international community" to Morocco's plan to grant substantial autonomy to its southern provinces -the Sahara-that Morocco had presented on April 11 to the UN Secretary General, said Mr. Fassi Fihri, who insisted that negotiations between the parties should take place in a "constructive spirit" to settle the three-decade-old Sahara conflict opposing Morocco to the Algerian-backed separatists Polisario.
"It is also a resolution of substance that constitutes a crucial turning point in the search for a realistic and workable solution of the issue," he said.
Echoing him, Morocco's ambassador to the United Nations, El Mostafa Sahel, who noted that "Morocco welcomes with great satisfaction" the Security Council resolution, said the "Security Council approves Morocco's choice aiming to find a negotiated political solution," noting that "the resolution call for negotiation is at the heart of the Moroccan initiative, and the approach adopted by the kingdom."
Political parties, for their part, underlined that the UNSC resolution crowns Morocco’s efforts aiming to settle the Sahara dispute, as the Secretary General of the Istiqlal party (majority), Abbas El Fassi, said the Council’s stance “recognizes the credibility and seriousness of Morocco’s efforts.”
The UNSC call for the region countries to enter into negotiations means that Algeria is considered as a “party”, taking into consideration that the Security Council “talks of the region States” while Algiers affirms that it is not concerned with this issue.
The Secretary General of the Popular Movement, Mohand Laenser, said the fact that Security Council welcomed Morocco’s efforts, “reflects its support” to the Moroccan initiative, recalling that many countries have backed the Moroccan initiative, including the influential countries on the world stage.
In its resolution, the UNSC welcomed as “serious and credible” Morocco’s efforts to solve the Sahara dispute opposing, calling upon the parties to enter into negotiations “without preconditions in good faith,” with a view to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solutions.
The Council also calls upon “the parties and States of the region to continue to cooperate fully with the United Nations and with each other to end the current impasse and to achieve progress towards a political solution”, reads the resolution in an allusion to Mauritania and Algeria. The latter, despite its political, diplomatic, financial, logistic and military support to the separatists, has always denied any involvement in the dispute. An argument that is not shared by Mr. Walsum who, in the same statement to MAP, insisted that Algeria plays "a preeminent and dominant role" in the Sahara issue.
“Algeria has in this whole dossier (Sahara issue) played an absolutely preeminent, dominant role ever since 1975,” he said following a closed hearing of the Council on the Sahara issue.
“I have to say it would be totally dishonest if I didn’t mention that they (Algerians) played an important role” in the conflict, he said, noting that “if there is one thing I've learnt in this one year and a half (as a Personal envoy), it is not to try to formulate exactly the role of Algeria,” a country that insists “it is not a part in the conflict.”
In its Monday’s resolution, the UN governing body also decided to extend the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara until 31 October 2007. Known by its French acronym MINURSO, the blue helmets have been deployed in the Sahara since 1991 to monitor the ceasefire concluded between the two warring parties.