Madrid says Morocco is committed to fighting irregular immigration
Félix Bolaños, Minister of the Presidency, during a public appearance. /
"We are going to have a stable relationship in which it is committed to collaborating against human trafficking," says the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños
The Spanish Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, assured this Saturday that Spain's support for the Moroccan autonomy initiative for the Sahara guarantees "a good" and "stable" relationship between the two countries, in which
the African country has promised to fight against irregular immigration.
This was stated by Bolaños in statements to the media, after learning yesterday of the new position of the Spanish Government on the Sahara, which represents a total change of position regarding the future of that territory, a former Spanish colony, since until now it defended the agreements of the UN to hold a referendum in the Sahara, to determine its political future.
A position that, according to the Spanish minister, "shows that we are going to have a good relationship with Morocco, which
let's have a stable relationshipin which it undertakes to collaborate against human trafficking, against illegal immigration“, he highlighted.
Bolaños valued that at this time it is necessary for us to "achieve stability", because "the world needs cooperation agreements between countries, to work together for common problems", such as, in the specific case of Spain and Morocco, irregular immigration.
Morocco is one of the routes through which thousands of African immigrants try to reach Spain, the gateway to Europe, and
in recent months there have been repeated episodes of massive jumps to the border fences that separate the African country from the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in addition to those that arrive in small boats to the coasts of southern Spain.
The Spanish Government's support for the Moroccan proposal for autonomy presented in 2007 for Western Sahara was made known through a statement from the Royal Cabinet that reported on a letter from the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to King Mohamed VI.
The news was confirmed shortly after by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, who described it as «
the most serious, credible and realistic basis for the resolution of this dispute« on the sovereignty of the former Spanish colony.
However, from the Fremte Polisario, which represents the Saharawi people, its delegate in the Spanish Canary Islands, Hamdi Mansour, reproached the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, this Saturday for having used the Saharawi people as "exchange currency" to resume "the damaged political and diplomatic relations" between Spain and Morocco, as he told EFE.
In his opinion, the pronouncement made public yesterday "enormously contradicts" the historical, moral, political and legal responsibility of Spain with the Saharawi problem, since it knows "perfectly" that it is a non-decolonized territory and pending a resolution by part of the United Nations.
The dispute over Western Sahara began in 1975 when
Morocco annexed the territory of this former Spanish colony in the process of decolonizationwhile the Polisario Front unilaterally proclaimed the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic in the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria and declared war on Rabat.
