UNITED NATIONS, November 1 (Aalimi Nation) – The UN peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara has been left without a mandate after the Security Council failed to renew it, with Russia vetoing a United States-drafted resolution and a rival Russian text falling short of the votes needed.
The mission, known as MINURSO, saw its mandate expire at midnight on October 31. Its future is now uncertain.
The US draft backed self-determination for Western Sahara and would have extended the mission for one year. It would also have dropped the word "referendum" from the mission's name and made Morocco's autonomy proposal the only basis for further negotiations.
The draft had the support of 11 of the 15 Council members, including permanent members France and the United Kingdom, but Russia exercised its veto.
Russia's alternative text would have renewed the existing mission without those changes. It received two votes in favour and one against, while 11 members abstained. A resolution needs nine votes to pass.
Morocco's royal palace welcomed the outcome. It said UN personnel and equipment should leave in the coming days, argued the issue should be withdrawn from the Council's consideration, and said the kingdom remains committed to the ceasefire. Celebrations were reported in El Aaiun.
US Ambassador Mike Waltz called the veto unfortunate and said the American proposal would have moved the 50-year conflict forward. He said the status quo was not acceptable.
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Moscow opposed the draft because it favoured one side, adding that the Council "cannot automatically predetermine matters relating to sovereignty."
Algeria's foreign ministry expressed regret and criticised the draft as biased toward Morocco. Its delegate thanked Russia and noted that Algeria has sheltered hundreds of thousands of Sahrawis. The Polisario Front's UN representative, Sidi Omar, also welcomed the veto, arguing the US text would have undermined Sahrawi self-determination.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the end of the mission does not negate the inalienable right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination.
The UN set up MINURSO in 1991 to monitor a ceasefire and prepare a referendum, which was never held. According to a UN report, the mission has 155 military personnel.
Spain withdrew from the territory in 1975, and Morocco has considered it its own since then. The Polisario Front does not accept that position and declared the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in 1976. Decades of conflict pushed at least 170,000 people into refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria.
In 2020, the US recognised Moroccan sovereignty, after which Morocco established ties with Israel. Last October, the Security Council backed Morocco's plan for autonomy under its sovereignty as the basis for negotiations and asked Guterres to review the mission.
Western Sahara is the last territory in Africa that the UN lists as non-self-governing.
Historian Selim Balouati Lakhloufi said support from the US, France and the UK for Morocco's autonomy plan is shifting the debate away from independence, and that the plan could become the main framework for talks.
Reports differ on how the rival Russian text failed; some describe it as blocked, while others say it simply did not reach the required threshold. What happens next to the mission's staff and equipment, and to the ceasefire monitoring it provided, has not been settled.
