Algiers, 4 November 2026 (SPS) – Sahrawi Minister of Foreign Affairs and African Affairs, Mr. Mohamed Yeslem Beissat, stated that Russia's veto thwarted an attempt to undermine the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination through the introduction of an unbalanced US proposal at the UN Security Council.
In an interview with Algeria's Ennahar TV channel, the Minister said that the US draft resolution submitted to the Security Council was unbalanced and failed to meet international standards guaranteeing peoples' right to self-determination. He noted that its rejection by the Russian veto prevented the Council from reaching a consensual solution to the Western Sahara issue.
He stressed that, for the first time since 1975, the Sahrawi question had witnessed a double veto, adding that all countries had emphasized the principle of self-determination, including those that voted in favour of the US draft resolution.
Mr. Beissat said that consensus on self-determination and the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) could have been achieved had it not been for what he described as the clear bias towards the Moroccan position.
He further stated that Morocco's proposal for so-called autonomy had reached a dead end, arguing that since 2007 Morocco had pursued intensive diplomatic and lobbying efforts to impose the proposal within the UN framework.
The Sahrawi Minister added that Morocco had spent two decades seeking to undermine the UN framework for resolving the Sahrawi question and to impose the autonomy proposal in an official Security Council document, an approach he considered to have failed.
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