The African Union’s (AU) Council of Peace and Security (CPS) stated that Moroccan authorities’ decision to expel the staff of the United Nations Mission for Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) from the occupied territories “threatens regional security,” calling the UN Security Council “to fully assume its responsibility.”
In a statement sent Saturday to APS, the AU’s CPS “strongly condemns Morocco’s decision to expel 84 international employees including the staffs of the AU and the MINURSO, and its refusal of the UN Secretary General’s visit to Rabat and occupied Laayoune.”
“This decision is very dangerous and undermines the mandate of the UN Security Council in terms of peacekeeping and international security,” the CPS said in a communiqué released after the Addis Ababa meeting on the situation in Western Sahara.
In this regard, the CPS recalled that “the presence of the Minurso is provided by resolution 690 (in 1991) of the UN Security Council.”
Besides, the CPS calls urges the UN Security Council to “fully assume its responsibility and press Morocco to cancel its decision to expel the Minurso staff.”
