Mediapart: Since Donald Trump’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara in 2020, Morocco has wanted to show that it has racked up diplomatic victories: in Spain, France, the United Kingdom, and most recently, Portugal.  Is it getting ready to win the game? 

In my view, evaluating Morocco’s progress on the Sahara question should not be limited to counting the number of countries that support its autonomy plan.  What is more important is to measure the extent to which the Sahrawis themselves are willing to live under the Kingdom’s authority.

Instead of focusing its efforts on obtaining Western support – support that often involves important concessions, sometimes perceived as going against the interests or the will of a majority of Moroccans – or on encouraging certain African states to open symbolic consular missions in Laayoune in exchange for obscure compensation, Morocco would gain more from intensifying its efforts to establish a real dialogue with all Sahrawis, without exception.

This is one of the lessons I have drawn from my experience at the United Nations: populations directly affected by conflicts should not place their destiny in the hands of international actors, whose interests are rarely disinterested.  It is up to them to assume their own responsibility in the search for a solution.

Ultimately, it is about winning the hearts and minds of peoples. The fact that opinion polls are banned in Morocco and Western Sahara says it all. If the Kingdom is seeking to definitively rule out the option of a referendum, it is undoubtedly because it fears that the Sahrawis, in a significant proportion, will not pronounce themselves in its favor.

Mediapart: And you don’t think that Morocco is capable of convincing the UN to take its side?

That’s what Moroccan diplomacy would like to believe… but it’s more like wishful thinking.  After all these years, and despite a succession of special envoys, the Security Council remains invariably divided.

Persisting with this strategy, hoping for a change in the UN’s attitude, amounts to repeating the same actions while expecting different results.  The definition of madness is to continue doing the same thing, over and over.  Yet this is the path Moroccan diplomacy is pursuing, continuing to hope that the United Nations will end up fully adopting its position. 

Of course, among the permanent members of the Security Council, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom support the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco. But it should not be forgotten that Russia and China, also permanent members, show themselves to be much more reserved about it.  Among the non-permanent members, some countries – like South Africa or Mozambique – openly give the Polisario their support when they are members of the council.

And even in the highly unlikely event that the entire Security Council were to support the Moroccan position, a sizeable obstacle would remain: if the Sahrawis themselves rejected this plan, the conflict would remain unresolved.

This is why Morocco must envisage a solution within a strictly Maghreb framework, relying on a three-dimensional strategy: an inclusive Sahrawi-Sahrawi dialogue, a direct dialogue between Morocco and the Polisario (as was the case on two occasions under Hassan II), and a dialogue between Rabat and Algiers, rather than continuing to bet exclusively on the international powers and certain lobbies to resolve our conflicts.

Mediapart: So, for you, there’s nothing more to be expected from the UN to find a political solution to this conflict?

 In 2003, the Special Envoy of the UN, James Baker, presented a plan that, in my view, was reasonable and could have constituted a serious basis for resolving the conflict.  This plan also received the unanimous support of the members of the Security Council.  Algeria accepted it, and although the Polisario initially rejected it, it ended up coming around after Morocco, in turn, rejected it.

In 2007, Rabat presented its own autonomy plan.  However, in Resolution 1754, adopted that same year – as in every annual resolution since – the Security Council continues to call for “a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.”

The problem is that this self-determination is never clearly defined. It can take several forms, but the Security Council deliberately maintains a certain ambiguity. However, this vagueness, which seems to suit the great powers, merely prolongs the status quo without resolving the core of the conflict.

Today what is needed is to seek a viable compromise, not an ideal solution.  However, the approach recently adopted by Moroccan diplomacy goes in the opposite direction: it consists of labeling the Polisario a terrorist movement linked to Iran and Hezbollah.  But if the other side is considered a terrorist group, how can we envisage serious negotiations with it?

Moreover, when peaceful protesters of the Rif Hirak are arrested and sentenced to twenty years in prison, how can one hope to convince the Polisario to lay down its arms and engage in a political process based on an autonomy plan that, moreover, was never developed in consultation with the Sahrawis themselves, including those allied with Rabat?

Mediapart: King Mohammed VI has just extended his hand to Algeria once again in his throne speech on July 29, 2025.  Their relations have seriously deteriorated in recent years.  Do you think there is a real risk of military escalation?

We can only welcome the King’s outstretched hand, but Moroccan diplomacy, by persisting in a logic of confrontation and mobilizing international actors to confirm the fait accompli, is adopting an approach contrary to the King’s spirit of openness and calming.

As for confrontations, the risk certainly exists, and it’s nothing new: it already appeared in 1963 and again in 1976.  More recently, Morocco and Algeria have intensified their rivalry by investing massively in high-tech weapons.  Since their independence, the two countries have maintained a persistent conflictual relationship, despite sharing a history, culture, and identity so close that they could be perceived as a single people spread across two territories.

Today, they seem trapped in a logic of permanent hostility, reminiscent, in some respects, of the division between North and South Korea.  A situation that is both absurd from a historical perspective and deeply regrettable from a moral perspective. 

Mediapart: With the International Center for Dialogue Initiatives, you want to mobilize civil society in the five Maghreb countries.  What could lead Morocco and Algeria to resume a conversation?

Our initiative at ICDI is entirely independent: at this stage, we have not engaged in any dialogue with the governments.  Our ambition is to revive the dream held by our parents and grandparents during the colonial era: that of a united, solidary, and sovereign Maghreb. 

The good news is that, despite tensions between states – sometimes fueled by disinformation campaigns, including via bots on social media – the peoples, in their vast majority, refuse to be drawn into this logic of confrontation.  This is precisely why it is urgent to mobilize Maghreb civil society and citizenry to collectively say: “Enough is enough.”  The verbal escalation, military escalation, and artificial division between peoples bound by so much shared history must be put to an end.    

We aspire to foster the emergence of a public opinion committed to dialogue, as well as of a civil society capable of pushing governments to re-establish direct contact within a strictly Maghreb framework — far from the logic imposed by international institutions or by external actors whose interventions most often respond to interests that are not ours.

Mediapart: How do you plan to bring Algiers and Rabat to the same table?

It’s premature to broach this subject at this stage.  Everything will depend on how the meeting is organized: the agenda, objectives, and framework will need to be clearly defined.  It won’t be a quick process — it will demand time, patience, and willpower — but it would represent the first attempt at reconciliation on a Maghreb scale, without the mediation of international actors.

Such a project requires real leadership.  After all, what’s stopping one of the heads of state from picking up the phone and saying to his counterpart: “My brother, next week, I’m coming to visit you?” Sometimes, the beginning of a calming process is only a simple, but courageous, gesture away.

This article was originally published in French in Mediapart on July 31, 2025.