Riyadh - King Mohammed VI expressed on Wednesday, his pride and appreciation for the constant support GCC countries have been giving to Morocco for the defense of its territorial integrity.

Riyadh – King Mohammed VI expressed on Wednesday, his pride and appreciation for the constant support GCC countries have been giving to Morocco for the defense of its territorial integrity.

“The question of the Moroccan Sahara has always been the cause of Gulf countries as well. And this is hardly surprising,” the Sovereign said in a speech delivered, Wednesday in Riyadh, at the opening ceremony of the Morocco-GCC Summit.

The Monarch recalled that in 1975, delegations from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the Sultanate of Oman and the United Arab Emirates took part in the Green March for the recovery of our southern provinces, adding that the participants included “my brother, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, who was 14 years old at the time.”

The King added that since then, the Gulf States have spared no effort to uphold Morocco’s just cause and defend the kingdom’s sovereignty over its entire territory, noting that this position was reaffirmed during the recent crisis with the UN Secretary-General.

“Only this time, the situation is serious. It is also unprecedented in the history of this artificial dispute over the Moroccan Sahara”, the Sovereign noted, underlining that what “we are witnessing, in fact, is a proxy war, in which the Secretary-General of the United Nations is being used to infringe on Morocco’s legitimate, historical rights in its Sahara, through biased statements and unacceptable behavior regarding the Moroccan Sahara.”

“This should not come as a surprise, for there is something that might explain it all! Indeed, what can one expect from the Secretary-General when he himself admits that he is not fully informed on the Moroccan Sahara issue – nor is he on many others? He is unaware of this issue’s intricate developments and its real background,” the Monarch said, wondering: What can the Secretary-General do while he is a hostage in the hands of some of his aides and advisers, to whom he delegates the responsibility of managing a number of important issues and settles for merely implementing the proposals they submit to him.

It is a fact that some of these aides have national agendas. They are politically motivated and they serve other parties’ interests without regard for their duty, as staff members of the United Nations Organization, to act impartially and objectively – an obligation that lies at the very heart of UN action, the King pointed out.

“The Secretary-General, whom I personally esteem, is only human after all. He cannot be fully cognizant of all issues on the United Nations’ agenda, nor find solutions to all crises and conflicts around the world,” the Monarch added.

“I wish to emphasize, in this respect, that Morocco does not have a problem with the United Nations Organization, of which it is an active member; nor does it have a problem with the Security Council, whose members it respects and with whom it is constantly in touch. Morocco has a problem with the Secretary-General, and more particularly with some of his aides, because of their hostile positions towards my country,” the Sovereign said, recalling that as regards this artificial dispute over the territorial integrity, Morocco has always liaised with its traditional friends, which include the United States of America, France and Spain, and with Arab sister nations, especially the Gulf States, as well as African countries, such as Senegal, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire and Gabon.

“We have a problem because of frequently changing governments in some of these countries,” the King said, noting that with every change, significant efforts have to be exerted to introduce new officials to all aspects of the Moroccan Sahara issue and to make them aware of its real implications. They have to be reminded that this dispute, which has been going on for more than forty years, has caused many casualties, that its material cost has been considerable and that the Sahara issue is the cause of all Moroccans, and not just the Monarchy’s.

The hostile plots which seek to undermine “our stability are continuing; they will not stop. Several countries in the eastern part of the Arab world have been torn apart and destroyed; today, it is the western part which is targeted, and the most recent of these conspiracies has been hatched against the territorial integrity of your second home, Morocco,” the Monarch underlined.

There is nothing new in this. Morocco’s opponents are using every means, directly or otherwise, as part of their thinly-veiled maneuvers, the Sovereign stressed, adding that depending on the circumstances, they try to delegitimize Morocco’s presence in its Sahara, promote the independence option and the separatist thesis, or undermine the autonomy initiative, which the international community has described as serious and credible.

As the plotting continues, the month of April, which coincides with the Security Council meetings on the Sahara issue, has become a bogeyman used against Morocco and a tool to exert pressure on my country at times, and blackmail it at others, King Mohammed VI noted.

With MAP