Spain calls for respecting UN resolution on western Sahara

Madrid, Dec 11 (Sputnik) Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya has called for respecting the UN resolutions on Western Sahara after US President Donald Trump had recognized the Moroccan sovereignty over the breakaway region.
On Thursday, Trump announced that he had brokered a peace deal between Israel and Morocco, and granted the latter the recognition of its sovereignty over the disputed region of Western Sahara, which is contested by the Polisario Front, the movement behind the partially-recognized Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
“The Spanish position is very clear: it is necessary to respect the UN resolutions to look for the solution [of the conflict],” the minister said on late Thursday.
At the same time, she welcomed the normalization of the Moroccan-Israeli bilateral relations.
In mid-November, Morocco launched an operation against the Polisario Front in the buffer zone of Guerguerat in the Moroccan Sahara. Rabat said that it had no choice but to do it after the movement invaded the Morocco-controlled territories of Western Sahara in October, blocking passenger and cargo traffic across the border with Mauritania. The Polisario Front, in turn, accused Rabat of violating the 1991 ceasefire and initiating a war.
Morocco has long been involved in a conflict with the Polisario Front movement over control of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that was transferred under control of Morocco and Mauritania in 1973. In 1976, the Polisario Front declared that it had established the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. The UN does not recognize SADR and demands that a referendum on self-determination be held. Morocco pushes a plan for the region’s autonomy, while Polisario insists that the status of the territory should be determined by a referendum among the local population.