Jordan will open a consulate in Laayoune, Western Sahara, announced an official statement released in Rabat on Thursday, November 19, amid high tensions in the former Spanish colony with still undefined status. It was during a telephone interview with the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, that Abdallah II of Jordan made this announcement, which amounts to recognizing the legitimacy of the Moroccan presence in this territory that has been disputed with him for decades by the separatists of the Front Polisario, supported by Algeria.
This strong gesture comes when the Polisario has decreed “State of war”, last week, ending a thirty-year-old cease-fire, in reaction to a Moroccan military operation in a buffer zone in the far south to restore road traffic cut off by Sahrawi separatists. The UN has since worked to put an end to the regular exchanges of fire between the two camps along the 2,700 km wall of sand built by Morocco to protect the western part, which it considers to be its own since the departure of the Spanish settlers.
A total of sixteen countries have already opened diplomatic representations since the end of 2019 in Laâyoune and Dakhla, a large fishing port located further south, following intense efforts by Moroccan diplomacy. The Polisario considers the opening of these diplomatic representations as a “Violation of international law” and an “Infringement of the legal status of Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory”.
During his appeal, King Abdullah II greeted the ” decisions taken […] to secure the movement of people and goods in the region of El Guerguerat, in the Moroccan Sahara ”, on a crucial road for trade with sub-Saharan Africa, according to the press release from the royal cabinet.
