Tags : Russia, Western Sahara, Polisario Front, Morocco, Security Council, MINURSO, United States, Resolution 2797,
Russia abstained in the vote of the US-drafted UNSC resolution to extend the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).
We could not support such an unbalanced text. We were also surprised by the approach taken by the penholders of the file, who decided that they could use the Security Council to advance their national agenda. This is fundamentally at odds with the established practice of the Council, which implies that penholders are supposed to seek consensus and take into account the positions of all members.
It is telling that for the second year in a row, our American colleagues have been reluctant to engage in a detailed discussion of the texts concerning Western Sahara with all Council members. We do not take the “Group of Friends of Western Sahara” into account: given the revised national positions of our partners that are part of it, the group has become a platform for “collective monologue.”
As a result, one delegation was compelled to request considering the draft within the council at large, which points to serious shortcomings on the part of the penholders of the file, who politicized and messed up the work on the document.
There was some desire to reach compromise at the 11th hour, which is precisely what helped avoid negative outcome of the vote. However, we view this document as a backtrack on the UN’s established guiding principles for the Western Sahara settlement. They have not gone nor been rejected, and these foundations are not subject to revision
Russia did not block the Council’s resolution to extend the mandate of MINURSO so as to give one more chance for the peace process to prevail. At the same time, we do hope that the “cowboy approach” of our American colleagues will not backfire nor reignite the conflict that is smoldering for a couple of decades.
We trust that the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, Staffan de Mistura, will do everything possible to prompt the parties involved to a mutually acceptable solution under the new circumstances, which will allow the people of Western Sahara to freely exercise their inalienable right to self-determination.
Such a solution must be in line with both the principles of the UN Charter and earlier Security Council decisions on Western Sahara. There can be no alternative to this scenario.
Source : Russia Embassy to UN
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