Spain Seeks US Help to Ease Tensions with Morocco over Western Sahara

The Spanish government is seeking the good offices of the United States in the crisis with Morocco, opened since December and exacerbated in April by the reception of Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front, in a hospital in Logroño. Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya spoke by phone on Friday with her American counterpart, Antony Blinken, to convey Spain’s willingness to resolve this crisis, which is only a consequence of the decision taken by Donald Trump to recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara, reports El Confidencial.

On Monday, President Pedro Sanchez will have a brief meeting with Joe Biden, on the sidelines of the NATO summit that will open in Brussels. He will seize this first opportunity for contact with the American president since his arrival at the White House on January 20, to also insist on the need for US involvement in resolving the crisis with Morocco.

On December 10, 2020, President Donald Trump recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara, inadvertently provoking a crisis with Morocco. On the same day, the Moroccan authorities postponed sine die the high-level summit with the Spanish government. Morocco’s objective is to get Spain, as the colonial power of the Sahara until 1975, to follow the example of the United States in recognizing the "Moroccanness" of the Sahara and thus encourage other European Union countries to do the same. But the Spanish government has not changed its position on the Sahara and does not intend to do so, as Gonzalez Laya reiterated on Wednesday.

"We support Spain and Morocco working together towards a resolution," said Jalina Porter, spokeswoman for US diplomacy, on April 19, the day after the migration crisis in Ceuta. Moreover, even if the Biden administration has not reversed Trump’s decision on the Western Sahara, it remains somewhat reserved. "There is very little continuity" with the Trump administration, Ned Price, a State Department spokesman, said on Wednesday, adding that private consultations are underway with the parties to find "the best way to achieve a lasting settlement".

For the record, this is not the first time that the United States has been called upon by Spain to help resolve a Hispanic-Moroccan crisis. They had already done so in July 2002, after the expulsion of Moroccan marines from the Perejil islet by the Spanish "green berets". President José Maria Aznar had then asked his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ana Palacio, to get in touch with the American Secretary of State, Colin Powell, to conduct the mediation with Morocco.