1st LD Writethru: Security Council extends mandate of UN mission for Western Sahara

UNITED NATIONS, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The Security Council on Friday adopted a resolution to extend the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara for six months, till Oct. 31, 2018.

Resolution 2414 won the support of 12 of the 15 members of the Security Council while China, Ethiopia and Russia abstained.

The resolution emphasizes the importance of a renewed commitment by the parties to advancing the political process in preparation for a new round of negotiations.

It emphasizes the need to make progress toward a "realistic, practicable and enduring political solution" to the question of Western Sahara based on compromise.

The resolution expresses concern over the presence of the Polisario Front, which is fighting with Morocco for the independence of Western Sahara, in the buffer strip in Guerguerat in the southwestern tip of the disputed territory, and calls for its immediate withdrawal.

Moroccan ambassador to the United Nations Omar Hilale said after the adoption of the resolution that there would be no political process without the withdrawal of the Polisario Front from Guerguerat.

The resolution also voices concern over the Polisario Front's announcement of the planned relocation of its administrative functions from Algeria to Bir Lahlou in the northeast of Western Sahara, and calls for the Polisario Front to refrain from "any such destabilizing actions."

After the vote, Russia and Ethiopia expressed disappointment at the United States, which drafted the resolution, for not incorporating their concerns in the final text.

Western Sahara was partitioned between Morocco and Mauritania at the end of Spain's colonial rule in 1976. When Mauritania, under pressure from Polisario guerrillas, abandoned all claims to its portion in August 1979, Morocco moved to occupy that sector and asserted administrative control over the whole territory. Fighting broke out between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front.

A cease-fire was signed in 1991. The UN mission, known by its French acronym as Minurso, was deployed that year to monitor the cease-fire and to organize, if possible, a referendum on self-determination of the people of Western Sahara. Enditem