Portugal considers Rabat’s autonomy plan to be realistic — DNOTICIAS.PT
The Moroccan ambassador in Lisbon said today that Portugal considers Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara to be realistic and that it can play “a very balanced and constructive role in the definitive resolution” of the conflict.
In an interview with the Lusa agency, Othmane Bahnini defended that Portugal, “as a neighboring country and with historical knowledge of the issue” of Western Sahara, is interested in helping to resolve the different also about the and future of the former Spanish colony in Africa, which began in 1975. with Morocco to obtain the sovereignty of the territory, contested from that same year by the Polisario Front.
“Portugal considers Morocco’s autonomy plan to be realistic and can help to definitively resolve the conflict. Portugal can play a very balanced and constructive role on the international scene,” said the Moroccan diplomat.
For Bahnini, in Lisbon as ambassador since May 2017, Portugal, as a neighboring country with historical knowledge of the issue, stands out in a Europe that “unfortunately, is not very connected to the issue, despite being a problem with European borders and that cannot be ignored”.
“It is a problem that exists, that persists and that should allow the stabilization of the region. This is in the interests of Europe, not only of Portugal, Spain or France. We are the first frontier of the Mediterranean and Europe has a responsibility to to mobilize to find a solution to the conflict,” he added.
According to Bahnini, nowadays, “there is a new European dynamic, of which Portugal is a part”, in which one “believes in the plan of autonomy for Morocco”.
“Look at all the UN resolutions since 2007, which consider that Morocco’s plan is serious, credible and realistic. In Europe there is a greater approximation to the position defended by Morocco”, he insisted.
“There are more than European countries that support an important proposal by Morocco – in addition to African and Arab countries. (…) Morocco’s country and sovereignty over Western Sahara”, he points out.
But there are, he insists: “Spain, countries, the Netherlands, Hungary, other countries, about a dozen that have created a dynamic of a policy on the conflict, but they clearly support unequivocally, realistic countries and the solution is the proposal that Morocco presented in 2007”.
For Rabat, explained Bahnini, Western Sahara is “a part of Morocco that is developing in a normal and natural way”, and which is, today, a region that has a higher development than several others in the north. from the country.
“It is an area that, economically, has great interest and has a lot of foreigners. .
“Today, the region is experiencing extraordinary development, a political, economic and socially peaceful life, with a perfect integration with regional representatives, in the Moroccan Parliament, with an important economic development, with local companies that export, that know well the soil”, in which Portugal can invest.
At the end of September, a source from the Foreigners’ business told Lusa that Portugal stands for the “uncompromising defense” of the United Nations Ministry’s exercises and whose political process, accompanied by the special envoy of the UN Secretary-General, Staffan de Mistura, is valued.
The real source that the invitation has already addressed to Mistura for a working visit from Lisbon as”, in line with the solutions of the UN Security Council.
Rabat, which controls nearly 80 percent of an almost deserted 266,000 square kilometer territory, an expanded autonomy plan under its sovereignty. The Polisario Front, for its part, is demanding a referendum on self-determination under the aegis of the UN, planned when the 1991 ceasefire was signed and which never materialized.