Morocco's government is threatening to take control of UN-monitored buffer zones in Western Sahara amid concerns that the mission is failing to keep out Polisario Front independence fighters.
The warning on Sunday came as UN Security Council members received Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' annual report on the situation in Western Sahara and the 27-year-old UN peacekeeping mission in the mineral-rich territory claimed by both Morocco and the Polisario.
Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said on Sunday that the Polisario recently moved members to the UN-controlled areas of Bir Lehlou and Tifariti. He also said Polisario members are again entering the Guerguerat area near the Mauritanian border, despite a UN-brokered deal to leave after tensions erupted there in 2016.
"If the UN, its secretary-general and the Security Council are not ready to put an end to these provocations, Morocco will have to act out its responsibility and intervene in the buffer zones," Bourita told reporters after an emergency parliament session to address Western Sahara.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Monday that members of the UN peacekeeping mission, known as MINURSO, "have not observed any movement of military elements in the northeast territory."
"MINURSO continues to monitor the situation closely," he added.
Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit said, "Morocco is ready to do everything to preserve its Sahara."
Bourita said Morocco has alerted the Security Council to its plans to step in the deserted land, but declined to specify what kind of intervention or when it would begin.
Peru's UN ambassador, Gustavo Meza-Cuadra, the current council president, told reporters yesterday that he received a letter from Morocco's UN ambassador that has been circulated to the 15 council members.
He called it an "informative letter" and said "no action has been taken yet."
Morocco annexed Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, in 1975 and fought the independence-seeking Polisario Front.
The UN brokered a cease-fire in 1991 and established a peacekeeping mission to monitor it and to help prepare a referendum on the territory's future that has never taken place.
The UN secretary-general expressed concern at escalating tensions and urged the Moroccan government and the Polisario Front to refrain from actions that could impact the cease-fire in their 42-year conflict over the Western Sahara, pointing to the escalating dispute over Guerguerat area in the buffer zone on the Morocco-Mauritanian border.
In a report to the Security Council obtained yesterday by The Associated Press, Guterres called on the Polisario Front to withdraw from Guerguerat. And he urged Morocco to reconsider its refusal to send an expert mission as part of the UN's effort to address questions raised by the Guerguerat situation.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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