Morocco says Spain supports its rule in Western Sahara
Posted March 18, 2022 1:04 pm.
Last Updated March 18, 2022 1:17 pm.
MADRID (AP) — Morocco’s royal palace says that Spain’s prime minister has told the Moroccan king that a proposal for establishing an autonomous Western Sahara under Rabat’s rule is “the most serious, realistic and credible” initiative for resolving a decades-long dispute over the vast territory.
In a letter to King Mohammed VI, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez recognized “the importance of the Sahara issue for Morocco” and that “Spain considers the autonomy initiative presented by Morocco in 2007, as the basis, the most serious, realistic and credible, for resolving the dispute,” the royal palace said Friday in a statement.
Spanish authorities didn’t immediately confirm the content of the missive, which would be a departure from Spain’s stance of considering Morocco’s grip on Western Sahara an occupation.
Spain, which is still considered the colonial administrative power of Western Sahara since it abandoned the territory in 1975, has for long supported that holding a United Nations-sponsored referendum should be the way to settle the territory’s decolonization.
A Spanish Foreign Ministry official said the Spanish government would make a statement later Friday.
The Associated Press
