The Assistant US Secretary of State for the Middle East and North Africa, David Schenker, visited Western Sahara on Saturday, January 9, a territory disputed by Morocco and the separatists of the Polisario Front.
A "historic" visit according to the American Embassy in Morocco.
This visit, the first by a senior American official, follows the recognition by the United States of Morocco's sovereignty over the former Spanish colony, in reverse of the United Nations position.
"The highest American diplomat for North Africa and the Middle East is making a historic visit to Laâyoune", the regional capital of Western Sahara, the American embassy said on its Twitter account.
American consulate project in Dakhla
The political negotiations led by the UN on the status of this desert territory located in the north of Mauritania have stalled for decades.
Morocco, which controls about two-thirds of it, wants "autonomy under control".
The Polisario, supported by neighboring Algeria, militates for independence and calls for a self-determination referendum, planned by the UN.
David Schenker's visit is part of the agreement signed on December 22 by the Americans, Israelis and Moroccans, linking a normalization of diplomatic relations between Morocco and the Hebrew state to the American recognition of sovereignty from Rabat to Western Sahara.
Morocco thus became the fourth country to normalize its relations with Israel in 2020, after the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
The agreement provides in particular for the opening of an American consulate in Dakhla, a fishing port located in the south of Western Sahara.
David Schenker is due to visit on Sunday the premises that will host the American representation after a meeting in Dakhla with the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, according to a diplomatic source in Rabat.
What about Joe Biden's position?
On his arrival in Laâyoune, after a regional tour that took him to Algeria and Jordan, David Schenker visited the headquarters of the UN mission in Western Sahara, Minurso, according to the official Moroccan agency MAP.
Minurso remained a spectator in mid-November, when Morocco deployed its troops in a buffer zone to "secure" the only route to West Africa, on the border with Mauritania.
This military movement pushed the Polisario to break the cease-fire, signed in 1991 under the aegis of the UN, and generated tensions with neighboring Algeria, without eliciting a reaction from the UN Security Council. .
During David Schenker's visit, Algeria told him that it hoped to see Washington maintain its "impartiality" on the regional and international scene.
Joe Biden, US President-elect, has yet to comment on the Western Sahara issue.
"Each administration has the prerogative to decide on its foreign policy," David Schenker recalled in Algiers, recalling that the Trump administration supported Rabat's "autonomy plan".
"On the question of whether the United States will be present on the ground in Western Sahara, I want to be clear: the United States is not establishing a military base in Western Sahara" and the US military command staff for Africa (Africom) "will not be relocated there", he said.
With AFP
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