Spain has recently begun to soften its position on the issue of the Moroccan Sahara, a transformation embodied in the statement of its Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Alparis, who supported the resumption of political dialogue between the parties to the conflict, by supporting the efforts of the new UN envoy to the Sahara.
During a meeting with Staffan de Mistura on the sidelines of the seventh session of the Rome Forum of Mediterranean Dialogues, the Iberian foreign minister said that "Spain supports the re-launch of dialogue between the two parties to the conflict," stressing "his readiness to cooperate closely with the United Nations based on UN Security Council resolutions."
According to diplomatic sources, the "Europe Press" agency, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Iberia proposed to the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to the Sahara to put an aircraft at his disposal in order to facilitate his trips and visits to the region in the future.
Staffan de Mistura, the new UN envoy to the Moroccan Sahara, said in his intervention at the seventh session of the Rome Forum for Mediterranean Dialogues that the United Nations should “be creative in how to build multilateralism in order to resolve the conflict.”
From the point of view of Mohamed Al-Tayyar, an expert in security and strategic affairs, "the statements of the Spanish diplomacy have not left their place, and have not yet presented features of change that can be considered positive and consistent with what is imposed by the reality of the artificial conflict in the southern Moroccan provinces."
Al-Tayyar said, in a statement to Hespress electronic newspaper, that "the new Spanish Foreign Minister, Jose Manuel, described in his first statement after taking over the reins of the Spanish Foreign Ministry the Kingdom of Morocco as a great friend, and that his country's successive governments usually declare their adherence to the efforts and steps of the United Nations in order to find a solution." for the Sahara issue.
The same expert added, “This position is contrasted with, on the other hand, the Spanish Foreign Ministry’s explicit demand of former US President Donald Trump to retract the recognition of the Moroccanness of the Sahara, after which the new American administration retracted, and is also matched by the content of the European Union’s statement that opposed Morocco’s right to complete its territorial integrity, To please Spain during its diplomatic crisis with Morocco after receiving the head of the separatist Polisario Front, Ibrahim Ghali, in an open manner, in coordination with the Algerian military regime.
The spokesman added that "Spain is the first financier of the Polisario Front alongside Algeria, which was able to employ the components of its civil society, including human rights associations and organizations, to support separatist demands, and for decades it has been organizing support convoys to the Tindouf camps, and it is the one who harnesses its media machine for the sake of support secession.
Al-Tayyar added that "Spain is facilitating the movements of Polisario activists in Europe, granting them residency and citizenship papers on a large scale, and presenting human rights awards to some of the Moroccan Sahrawi separatists," pointing out that "what is required of Spain is not to issue expressions of friendship and friendship on every occasion in which the name of Morocco is raised." Rather, it should explicitly and definitively end support for secession in the southern Moroccan provinces, and put a noticeable end to its support for the Polisario Front.
The political researcher himself stressed that “it is not enough for Spain to declare from time to time its support for the international process, and it is not enough to send expressions of cordiality and friendship to preserve its economic interests. Among their obligations, and their explicit opposition to the UN plan and the royal speech on the occasion of the anniversary of the Green March, is (they have no choice) but to come up with a position that is not different from the American position that affirms Morocco’s sovereignty over its Sahara.