Addressing the 7th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC), Mr. Radi made it clear that Morocco has proposed its initiative for negotiating an autonomy status for the Sahara region to facilitate their return with dignity.

    This initiative, he said, includes the international standards of human rights, deeming  it "a suitable framework" for a negotiated, fair and lasting solution to end the 33-years-old dispute between Morocco and the Algerian-backed separatist movement, Polisario over the Sahara.

    The Moroccan proposal to grant substantial autonomy to its southern provinces (the Sahara) "complies with the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter and with the processes of peaceful settlement of disputes," Mr. Radi concluded.

   The Sahara dispute erupted in 1976 when the Polisario laid claims to the Sahara, a former Spanish colony that Morocco had retrieved under the Madrid Accord signed in 1975. The Polisario had ever since held thousands of Moroccan-Sahara natives in detention camps located on the Algerian soil.

    Nevertheless, more and more Sahrawis pay no heed to Polisario blockade and choose to return to Morocco. Nearly 100 Moroccan Sahrawis, including 20 children, have recently returned home.