New York (United Nations), 16 April 2024 (SPS) – Sahrawi Ambassador Sidi Mohamed Omar, the Polisario Front’s representative to the United Nations (UN) and coordinator with MINURSO, affirmed that the Security Council is called upon today to take tangible action to enable MINURSO to fulfill its mandate and allow the Sahrawi people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.
Ahead of a Security Council session on Western Sahara, Sidi Mohamed Omar told Algeria Press Service that the Security Council had created “MINURSO” under its authority in April 1991 after the two parties to the conflict accepted the UN-OAU settlement plan in August 1988 with a clear and precise mission, namely organizing a self-determination referendum without administrative or military constraints, in line with a plan that would first implement a ceasefire.
Since then, the Council has focused on extending MINURSO’s mandate without managing to organize the self-determination referendum, given the stagnant state of the peace process, notably because of “the obstructions of the Moroccan occupation and the inaction of the Security Council, under the sway of some of its active members,” the Sahrawi diplomat noted.
For Omar, the self-determination referendum remains “the only way to a peaceful, just and lasting settlement of this decolonization issue.”
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