UNITED NATIONS — Russia vetoed a U.S.-drafted resolution Friday that would have supported Morocco's demand for sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara and ended the U.N.'s 35-year peacekeeping mission, which was charged with helping to prepare a referendum on the future of the mineral-rich territory.
The U.N. Security Council then defeated a Russian-drafted resolution to extend the mandate of the peacekeeping mission for a year. The 3-1 vote with 11 abstentions meant the United States didn’t have to use its veto because the resolution failed to get the minimum nine “yes” votes in the 15-member body.
The U.N. mission's mandate will expire on Saturday unless there is a last-minute effort to revive it.
Morocco annexed Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony also believed to have considerable offshore oil deposits, in 1975, sparking a conflict with the Polisario Front, which represents the indigenous Sahrawi people.
The United Nations brokered a ceasefire in 1991 and established a peacekeeping mission to monitor the truce and help prepare a referendum on the territory’s future. It has never taken place because of disagreements on who is eligible to vote.
Last year, the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution backing Morocco's claim to the Western Sahara, a significant shift that aligns with the Trump administration's support for the North African country.
That resolution referred to Morocco's proposal for wide-ranging autonomy for the territory as the basis for negotiations and made no mention of a referendum on self-determination. Morocco's plan to maintain sovereignty over the territory also is backed by Britain, France and others, while Russia and China have long favored holding a referendum that includes independence as an option.
The U.S.-drafted resolution put to a vote Friday went much further. It would have ended the peacekeeping mission on April 30, 2027, and created a new political mission no longer preparing for a referendum. It would have affirmed “that genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only feasible solution to negotiate a mutually acceptable solution.”
Russia's rival resolution would have simply extended the current mandate of the peacekeeping mission until Oct. 31, 2027.
In an Oct. 22 letter to the council, the Polisario Front’s U.N. representative called the U.S. draft an “extremely dangerous, unprecedented departure,” not only from international law underpinning Western Sahara as a question of decolonization but from the peace process that the Security Council established.
Sidi Omar warned that its adoption would “trigger further tension and instability,” and the Polisario Front “would have no choice but to disengage from the peace process as a whole.”
He stressed that the International Court of Justice confirmed that sovereignty over Western Sahara “belongs exclusively to the Sahrawi people who have an inalienable, non-negotiable, and imprescriptible right to self-determination and independence.”
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Akram Oubachir contributed to this report from Rabat, Morocco
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