Western Sahara: King Mohammed VI urges "unequivocal" support for Morocco

"I would like to send a clear message to everyone: the Sahara issue is the prism through which Morocco considers its international environment", declared the king in a radio-television speech on the occasion of the so-called feast of " the Revolution of the King and the People", celebrating a historic episode in the anti-colonial struggle and which symbolizes the link between the monarch and his subjects.

"It is also clearly and simply the yardstick that measures the sincerity of the friendships and the effectiveness of the partnerships that it establishes", he underlined.

"With regard to certain countries that are among our partners, traditional or new, whose positions on the Sahara issue are ambiguous, we expect them to clarify and review the substance of their position, in a way that does not lend itself to no equivocation", warned the Cherifian sovereign.

The latter did not specify which countries his message was particularly aimed at.

But he welcomed the "essential" position of the United States - which recognized the "Moroccanness" of Western Sahara under the presidency of Donald Trump, an initiative taken on by his successor Joe Biden.

Mohammed VI also welcomed the reversal of Spain, and to a lesser extent of Germany, which rallied to the "autonomy initiative" under Moroccan sovereignty advocated by Rabat to settle the Western Sahara conflict. .

This former Spanish colony, which Morocco and the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front have been fighting over for decades, is considered a "non-autonomous territory" by the UN.

Morocco controls 80% and advocates autonomy under its exclusive sovereignty, while the Polisario, supported by Algeria, calls for a referendum on self-determination.

In his speech, also devoted at length to the Moroccan diaspora, Mohammed VI called for the institutional strengthening of ties between "the Moroccans of the world" and their homeland, "including with the hundreds of thousands of Moroccan Jews" abroad.

Morocco and Israel resumed diplomatic relations in December 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords, a process between the Jewish state and several Arab countries, supported by Washington.

In return, the Trump administration recognized Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara.

The approximately 700,000 Israelis of Moroccan descent have often maintained very strong ties with their country of origin.