UN peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara to expire amid US, Russia vetoes
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara has been left in limbo after Russia and the United States vetoed each other's draft resolutions on extending the mission, just one day before its mandate expires.
The peacekeeping mission, known as MINURSO, was established in 1991 to oversee a settlement plan and ceasefire between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front in a territorial dispute spanning half a century. Morocco considers Western Sahara, a mineral-rich former Spanish colony, as its territory.
The Polisario Front, which is supported by Algeria and represents the indigenous Sahrawi people, seeks to establish an independent state called the Sahrawi Republic.
US and Russia wield vetoes
On Friday, the US tabled a draft resolution that would have extended the mandate for one year while making Morocco's autonomy plan the only basis for negotiations and cutting the mission's military component. The proposal would have also rebranded the force from MINURSO to MINUSO, dropping the 'R' which refers to referendum.
The US proposal was vetoed by Russia, which slammed it as a "unilateral approach." Eleven of the 15 UNSC members voted in its favor and three abstained.
The US, with its own veto, then blocked a Russian draft that proposed renewing the mission's mandate for another year while preserving the same terms as before.
Unfortunately, some members of this Council have used their veto to preserve the letter 'R' for referendum in the mission's name, even though the United Nations has not been preparing to hold such a vote for decades.
Reactions from both sides
Morocco's royal palace welcomed the failure to renew the peacekeeping mission and said that this "should mark the end of the Security Council's involvement and the removal of this issue from its agenda." The Polisario Front's UN representative thanked Russia for vetoing the US resolution that he said "would have undermined the free exercise by the Sahrawi people of their inalienable right to self-determination and independence."
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