Before the United Nations General Assembly, Nasser Bourita did not present the Western Sahara issue as simply another restatement of Rabat\u2019s established position. The Moroccan foreign minister chose a specific date to mark what he described as a break: October 31, 2025, the date the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2797.<\/p>\n
Since then, Bourita said, the regional dispute has entered a new phase, defined by a break with previous approaches and a move toward a final settlement.<\/p>\n
The resolution itself, adopted by 11 votes with no votes against and three abstentions, extended the mandate of MINURSO until October 31, 2026, and supported the efforts of the UN Secretary-General and his Personal Envoy to advance negotiations on the basis of Morocco\u2019s autonomy proposal. It also called on the parties to engage in discussions without preconditions, with the objective of reaching a final and mutually acceptable political solution.<\/p>\n
Bourita places that wording within a broader trajectory. From Rabat\u2019s perspective, the issue is no longer simply about reproducing earlier negotiations through the same mechanisms, but about turning the momentum created by the resolution into a process capable of producing a final settlement.<\/p>\n
That is the point the minister emphasized: Morocco is not describing the situation merely as a continuation of the UN process, but as a phase it considers different from those that came before.<\/p>\n
In Bourita\u2019s reading, the autonomy initiative under Moroccan sovereignty is now the basis around which negotiations should proceed. The UN text, meanwhile, calls for negotiations on the basis of the Moroccan proposal while retaining the objective of a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, as well as its reference to the principle of self-determination.<\/p>\n
That distinction between the UN text and Morocco\u2019s political reading remains important when describing the new phase precisely.<\/p>\n
Bourita, however, did not remain focused on Western Sahara.<\/p>\n
His speech moved toward another issue closely connected to current international tensions: non-state armed groups. The minister spoke of the expansion of their influence, their control over or competition for territories and strategic locations, and the resulting threats to maritime navigation, infrastructure and regional security.<\/p>\n
He placed the issue within a framework broader than the fight against any single armed group. Morocco, according to the position he presented, is calling for action not only against such groups but also against actors that provide them with financing, weapons or other forms of support.<\/p>\n
Then came climate and water.<\/p>\n
For Morocco, water can no longer be treated as a purely technical issue separate from stability. Bourita recalled that the Kingdom is among the countries particularly exposed to the effects of climate change, despite its relatively limited contribution to greenhouse-gas emissions. He referred to the construction of dams, the interconnection of water basins, seawater desalination, the reuse of treated wastewater and more efficient management of water resources.<\/p>\n
These issues appeared in the same speech as security concerns and regional conflicts. The combination reflects a broader conception of stability in which armed conflict, water, climate and development increasingly intersect.<\/p>\n
On the Middle East, Bourita maintained Morocco\u2019s established position while giving it a more operational dimension.<\/p>\n
There can be no lasting peace, according to the position he presented, without an independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, alongside an Israeli state living in security and peace.<\/p>\n
But Morocco did not stop at restating that political position.<\/p>\n
In July, the Kingdom signed an agreement setting out its participation in the international stabilization force for Gaza. The agreement was signed in Rabat in the presence of Bourita, Moroccan defense officials and the US envoy for Gaza, Nicholas Grunfeld, and was presented as the framework for Morocco\u2019s participation in the multinational force.<\/p>\n
In New York, Bourita outlined the main elements of that participation: training the Palestinian police, deploying senior military officers within the security structure, establishing a field hospital and preparing programs aimed at countering extremism.<\/p>\n
Those elements give Morocco\u2019s position on Gaza a more practical dimension than a political declaration in favor of a two-state solution alone. There is now an announced commitment to participate in international security and humanitarian arrangements on the ground, although the nature and scale of any actual deployment remain linked to the mechanisms of the international force and to developments in Gaza.<\/p>\n
In the West Bank, the minister\u2019s language was more direct.<\/p>\n
He referred to laws and measures that he said could facilitate the seizure of Palestinian land and the expansion of settlements, as well as violence by settlers against Palestinians. He also criticized unilateral Israeli measures and what he described as repeated violations of the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque.<\/p>\n
Jerusalem appeared in another part of the speech as well. King Mohammed VI, in his capacity as chairman of the Al-Quds Committee, is continuing, according to Bourita, efforts to preserve the city\u2019s historical, cultural and spiritual identity and its legal status, while supporting projects aimed at improving the living conditions of its inhabitants.<\/p>\n
Between Western Sahara and Gaza, the minister therefore did not present two entirely separate files.<\/p>\n
In the first, Morocco emphasizes the transition from a long-standing negotiation process toward what it considers a new political phase following Resolution 2797. In the second, it moves from stating a position to announcing participation in international arrangements intended to translate security and humanitarian principles into practical measures.<\/p>\n
The other issues raised in the speech \u2014 armed groups, maritime security, climate and water \u2014 fit into a broader picture. Before the General Assembly, Morocco presents itself as a country concerned with conflict resolution while placing security, development and cross-border risks within the same wider framework.<\/p>\n
Resolution 2797 nevertheless remains the central reference point whenever Western Sahara is discussed. Its text does not state that a settlement has been achieved, nor does it declare the dispute over. It extends the MINURSO mandate and pushes toward political negotiations on the basis of Morocco\u2019s autonomy proposal. Whether this momentum develops into a final settlement will therefore still depend on the negotiations, the positions of the parties and the ability of the Secretary-General\u2019s Personal Envoy to move the process forward.<\/p>\n
Bourita chose to describe the process as \u201cirreversible.\u201d The available facts establish a shift in the UN wording and in the position occupied by Morocco\u2019s autonomy proposal within the negotiation process. They do not, however, mean that the dispute has ended or that a final settlement has already been reached.<\/p>\n
The next phase will therefore be measured less by formulations than by what the negotiations produce, by how the international arrangements for Gaza move from announced agreements to implementation on the ground, and by the ability of Moroccan diplomacy to maintain its positions while several regional files continue to evolve at the same time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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