Morocco’s representative to the UN, Omar Hilale, has warned that his country will launch «an appropriate military response» if the Polisario Front resorts to Iranian drones.
«It would be a game changer at the military level and Morocco would react accordingly and appropriately,» Hilale warned in statements reported by the Moroccan press.
Moreover, he pointed out that «it would pose a serious moral problem» because while the UN and other international organizations are asking for more funding to assist the Saharawis in Tindouf, «at a time when there is talk of the risk of famine, of shortages, the Polisario is boasting of having acquired drones», he indicated.
For Hilale, if the acquisition of Iranian drones is finally confirmed, «this will give us the reason for having alerted the international community for two years about the fact that Iran and Hezbollah are infiltrating Tindouf and North Africa and that they have gone from training to equipping the Polisario with drones». «After having destabilized Yemen, Syria, Iraq,…. Iran is destabilizing our region,» Hilale pointed out.
On the other hand, Hilale referred to the recent extension of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), approved last Thursday by the UN Security Council. However, he warned that in the event of the withdrawal of the international mission, «the Kingdom of Morocco would have the right to return to the situation before» the cease-fire.
Hilale referred to a letter sent by the then King Hassan II of Morocco to the UN three days before the 1991 cease-fire in which he warned that if MINURSO withdraws, Morocco «would have the right to recover these areas».
The former Spanish colony of Western Sahara was occupied by Morocco in 1975 despite the resistance of the Polisario Front, with whom it was at war until 1991, when both parties signed a cease-fire with a view to holding a referendum on self-determination, but differences over the elaboration of the census and the inclusion or not of Moroccan settlers has so far prevented its convocation.
On November 14, 2020, the Polisario Front declared the cease-fire with Morocco broken in response to a Moroccan military action against Saharawi activists in Guerguerat, in the agreed zone of détente, which was for the Saharawis a violation of the conditions of the armistice and has since announced numerous attacks against the Moroccan defensive wall.
