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Today, Saturday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates announced that Jordan is fully in agreement with the fraternal Kingdom of Morocco in all necessary measures to protect its national interests, territorial integrity and security.
In a statement, the ministry affirmed its support for the steps ordered by His Majesty King Mohammed VI to restore security and protection in the Guerguerat buffer zone on the border between Morocco and Mauritania and to ensure the safety of citizens and the flow of traffic and commercial traffic.
The Ministry spokesman, Ambassador Dhaifallah Al-Fayez, condemned the illegal raid on Guerguerat, which violates the signed agreements and pushes towards a threat to security and stability, underlining Jordan’s clear and firm stance in supporting the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Morocco and its sovereignty over all its territories and supporting efforts to reach a political solution to the Moroccan Sahara problem. According to the decisions of international legitimacy and the autonomy initiative launched by the Kingdom of Morocco.
International and regional concern over the escalation between Morocco and Polisario
Fears of a widening conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front in Western Sahara increased after Morocco launched a security operation in the Guerguerat buffer zone on Friday, which Polisario saw as the end of the ceasefire in force between the two parties for thirty years. The process angered the regional countries.
The Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Friday morning that this operation comes after the closure from 21 October of members of the Liberation Front of Sakia El Hamra and the Gold Valley (Polisario), a road through which, in particular, trucks carrying goods from Morocco to Mauritania and sub-Saharan African countries. .
Later in the evening, the General Command of the Moroccan Armed Forces stated that “the Guerguerat crossing is now fully secured by establishing a safety belt that ensures the flow of goods and people”.
“During this operation, the Polisario armed militias opened fire on the Royal Armed Forces, which responded to them, and forced the elements of these militias to flee with no casualties,” he added.
He reiterated that the operation was conducted “according to clear rules of intervention which require avoiding any contact with civilians”.
And Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita stressed to Agence France-Presse: “The issue is not linked to an offensive operation but rather it is a firm move against these unacceptable actions”, underlining that the elements of the United Nations mission in charge to monitor compliance with the “MINURSO” ceasefire agreement and that they are on the ground “. They recorded that there was no contact with civilians”.
Has the war begun and has the discord spread?
On the other hand, Sahrawi Foreign Minister Mohamed Salem Ould El-Salik said: “The war has begun. Morocco has canceled the ceasefire.
“It is aggression”, he said in a phone call to the AFP in Algeria, stressing that “the Saharawi forces are in a state of self-defense and are responding to the Moroccan forces”.
The representative of the Polisario in Europe, Ubi Bachraya, told Reuters that there were military clashes with a firefight on Friday, adding: “We have announced a return to the armed struggle”.
A diplomat familiar with the situation told Reuters that heavy gunfire was heard for about half an hour from the direction of a Moroccan military post near the escalation site on Friday.
Message to the Security Council
The Sahrawi ambassador to Algeria, Abdelkader Talib Omar, told Agence France-Presse that “the president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and Secretary General of the Polisario Front Ibrahim Ghali sent a letter to the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, asking that the matter be presented to the United Nations Security Council “.
“We hold the Moroccan occupying state fully responsible for the repercussions of its military action,” Ghali said in his message.
The ambassador stressed that “with this attack and the opening of three holes in the separation wall, there is no turning back. There is no longer a ceasefire “.
This wall, built by Morocco, separates the Sahrawi fighters from the area controlled by the Kingdom, and is surrounded by a buffer zone and five kilometers wide on both sides.
The Polisario Front on Monday threatened to rescind the ceasefire agreement signed with Rabat if the kingdom “brought” military or civilians to the Guerguerat buffer zone.
Normal traffic obstruction
On Friday evening, a statement by the Moroccan Armed Forces Command states that “members of the Polisario militia deliberately set fire to the tented camp they had set up, and fled in vehicles (jeeps) and trucks east and south under the gaze of the observers of the United Nations Mission (MINURSO) “.
In a speech last week, Moroccan King Mohammed VI stressed “the categorical rejection (…) of an attempt to obstruct normal traffic between Morocco and Mauritania, or to change the legal and historical situation east of the security wall. “.
In recent days, King Mohammed VI exchanged messages with the United Nations, France, the United States, Mauritania and other countries “interested in the file”, to inform them of the process aimed at “putting an end to the obstacle” to circulation at the border crossing, according to the Moroccan Foreign Minister.
cease-fire
And on Friday evening, the Moroccan Foreign Ministry underlined that “Morocco remains firmly attached to maintaining the ceasefire”.
Last week, about two hundred Moroccan truck drivers made a distress call to each of Rabat and Nouakchott, in which they said they were stuck at the Guerguerat crossing, after the Polisario prevented them from crossing.
An official from the Moroccan Foreign Ministry said 108 people working in freight transport are stranded on the Mauritanian side of the border and another 78 on the other, on trucks from different countries in Morocco, Mauritania and France.
International reactions
On Friday, the escalation in the region sparked mixed reactions as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed “regret” over the failure of his efforts in recent days to “avoid escalation,” according to his spokesman.
Algeria, which supports the Polisario, and Mauritania, which is also concerned about this conflict, have called for “moderation” and “preservation of the ceasefire”.
And France has called for “doing everything possible to avoid escalation” in Western Sahara.
“France today asks to do everything possible to avoid an escalation and return to a political solution as soon as possible,” the French foreign ministry told AFP.
Western Sahara is a vast desert region on the Atlantic coast of Africa and a former Spanish colony, of which Morocco controls 80 percent, and aims to grant it autonomy under its sovereignty, while the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria, it calls for its independence.
Guerguerat is a buffer zone where a United Nations peacekeeping force conducts regular patrols. In the past, it has witnessed tensions between Polisario and Morocco, especially in early 2017.
The Polisario Front protests the transit traffic through this point towards Morocco, while the Moroccan side considers the crossing vital for trade with sub-Saharan Africa.
For decades, the United Nations has sponsored efforts to find a political solution to end the conflict in Western Sahara. At the end of October, the Security Council extended the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) for another year.
The resolution called on the parties to the conflict to resume negotiations, which had been blocked for many months, in which Mauritania and Algeria also participate.
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