Morocco says to withdraw from Western Sahara tension zone

RABAT: Morocco said Sunday it will pull back from a zone of the contested Western Sahara that has raised tensions with Polisario Front separatists.
“The Kingdom of Morocco will proceed from today with a unilateral withdrawal from the (Guerguerat) zone,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
It said the decision was taken by King Mohamed VI at the request of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Rabat now “hopes the secretary general’s intervention will allow a return to the previous situation in the zone concerned, keep its status intact, allow the flow of normal road traffic and thus safeguard the cease-fire,” it said.
In a telephone call to Guterres on Friday, the king called on the UN to take urgent measures to end “provocation” by the Polisario Front threatening a 1991 cease-fire.
Morocco insists that the former Spanish colony is an integral part of its kingdom, but the Polisario is demanding a referendum on self-determination.
The two sides fought for control of the Western Sahara from 1974 to 1991, with Rabat gaining control of the territory before the UN-brokered cease-fire took effect.
In the phone call, King Mohamed condemned “repeated incursion by armed Polisario men” in the Guerguerat district.
Tensions flared last year after the Polisario set up a new military post in Guerguerat district near the Mauritanian border.
The move came after Morocco last summer started building a tarmac road in the area south of the buffer zone separating the two sides.
Separately, sources said authorities in Morocco are hoping for an influx of Russian and Chinese tourists, who currently account for just one percent of total visitors.