Calm continues in the Guerguerat border region for the third day in a row, with the continuation of the crossing between the Mauritanian 55th Point crossing, while Morocco began to erect a sand and rocky barrier around the buffer zone between the Guerguerat crossing and the 55th point crossing in Mauritania.
And the head of the Moroccan government, Saad Eddine El Othmani, warned the Polisario Front not to do again what he described as an attempt to provoke his country.
El Othmani added - in a speech during a digital speech festival of his Justice and Development Party - that Morocco's policy with its neighbors is based on the absence of any difficulties or problems, neither in the past nor in the future.
Othmani also stressed that the Moroccan Armed Forces' establishment of a security belt to secure the road linking with Mauritania is a strategic shift on the ground that has many advantages, indicating that this will prevent the Polisario Front from blocking this road in the future.
A dangerous development
For his part, the former Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for Western Sahara, Eric Janssen, said - in a statement to the Moroccan News Agency - that the Polisario's announcement of its withdrawal from the ceasefire agreement is dangerous and threatens the stability of the entire region, including the European neighborhood.
Janssen added that the recent events in Guerguerat, in the buffer zone on the border with Mauritania, constitute a very dangerous new development.
The former head of MINURSO warned that the Polisario declaration was alarming, given that the outbreak of a possible armed conflict could have disastrous consequences for the entire region.
Transit traffic
These developments come while the transit movement between the Mauritanian Point 55 Crossing and the Guerguerat crossing continues in full flow, amid the deployment of the Moroccan armed forces within the area separating the two crossings.
Bulldozers backed by Moroccan military vehicles began to erect a rocky barrier around the buffer zone that the Polisario Front supporters had controlled during the past weeks.
On the military level, the two parties to the conflict, Morocco and the Polisario Front, talked about mutual targeting across the line separating their areas of control.
The Polisario Front announced - on Saturday - that it was no longer committed to the ceasefire agreement it reached with Morocco in 1991 under the auspices of the United Nations.
Morocco and the Polisario have been fighting over sovereignty over the Sahara region since the Spanish occupation ended its presence in the region in 1975.
The conflict on the ground turned into an armed confrontation that lasted until 1991, and ceased with the signing of a ceasefire agreement that considered Guerguerat a demilitarized zone.
Rabat insists on its entitlement to the Sahara region, and proposes extended autonomy under its sovereignty, while the Polisario is calling for a referendum to decide the region's fate, a proposal supported by Algeria, which is hosting refugees from the region.