U.N. to Vote on Moderate W. Sahara Resolution Next Week
The U.N. Security Council will vote next Tuesday to renew the peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara, again without widening its mandate to monitoring human rights, diplomats said.
The resolution circulated by the United States aims to send "a clear unified signal," a Security Council diplomat said Wednesday, a year after a serious row between Morocco and the U.S..
The 15 member states are expected to adopt the text next Tuesday without any problem, the diplomat added.
Rights groups have been pressing the United Nations to task the MINURSO peacekeepers with human rights monitoring.
Washington sought to enlarge the mandate last year but the proposal was finally dropped after Rabat launched a shrill lobbying campaign.
Morocco, which annexed Western Sahara in the 1970s and controls most of the territory, is highly sensitive to criticism of its policies in a region that is disputed by Algeria.
This month, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for "sustained, independent and impartial" monitoring of human rights in Western Sahara, while welcoming Moroccan efforts to improve the situation in disputed territory under its control.
But Morocco's King Mohamed VI warned Ban of "perilous options" and insisted that the U.N. role remain unchanged.
Morocco has proposed wide autonomy for Western Sahara under its sovereignty as a solution to the decades-old conflict.
"The important issue now is that the steps the Moroccans announce, that would be a real progress on the human rights side, be implemented by them," said the diplomat.
He said for example that a bill on military courts should be passed by the Moroccan parliament.
"The difference this year is that the Moroccans have set out a series of actions they are prepared to take on the human rights side, and we'll hold them to that," he added.
MINURSO has monitored a ceasefire between Morocco and the Algeria-backed Polisario Front since 1991.
The U.N. vote was originally set for Wednesday but the U.S.-drafted resolution was distributed to members too late, a diplomat said.
Source: Agence France Presse
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