Fez- King Mohammed VI of Morocco started on Thursday a historic visit to the Saharan provinces. Today, the Moroccan monarch attended the Friday prayer at the Asslam mosque in the city of Dakhla, the region’s second largest city after Laayoune.
The visit comes a week after the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released his annual report on the “Situation in the Western Sahara” and less than two weeks before the mandate of United Nations Missions for the Referendum in the Western Sahara, known by its French acronym as MINURSO, comes up for renewal.
Last weekend King Mohammed VI held a phone call with the UN chief and reiterated Morocco’s constant commitment and constructive cooperation to reach a final political settlement to this regional dispute, within Moroccan sovereignty.
King Mohammed VI further drew the UN secretary General’s attention to the imperative need to preserve the parameters of the negotiations as they were defined by the Security Council, safeguarding the current framework and modalities of the UN involvement and avoiding biased approaches and risky options.