Documentos desclasificados de la CIA reconocen la soberanía marroquí sobre el Sáhara Oriental

Several Moroccan media outlets have published a declassified document from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which recognises Morocco's sovereignty over Eastern Sahara. According to The North African Post and Hespress, the report in question identifies as Moroccan territory the region stretching from Hassi Beida (Bechar province) to the town of Tinjoub (south of Mhamid Ghizlane). 

In addition to recognising this area - currently under Algerian control - as Moroccan, the CIA document blames France, the former colonial power, for the territorial dispute between Algeria and Morocco and the border problems in the region. 

As the report notes, in drawing the dividing line between the two Maghreb countries, the French authorities favoured Algeria, which was legally part of France, while Morocco was only a protectorate. "After gaining independence in 1956, the Moroccans raised the question of recovering their Saharan territories annexed during the era of French Algeria," the document adds. 

A few years later, Morocco and France "informally agreed" on their respective areas of operations in order to avoid clashes between their forces. "Under this informal agreement, the French extended their occupation to the north and west of the previous lines, but the new line was not granted any legal status," it notes.

However, as the report points out, this line is adopted by the Algerians. The Moroccans insist that the real border is an earlier line that includes Hassi Beida and Tinjoub within Moroccan national territory. "These points are important because they are on the main caravan route linking Colomb-Bechar and Tindouf," the document explains. 

According to The North African Post, the CIA report refers to an agreement reached in 1961 between the late King Hassan II and Ferhat Abbas, then prime minister of the Algerian interim government, to recover the eastern Moroccan Sahara, but Algerian leaders broke their promise. "They refused to return the Moroccan Sahrawi territories and preferred to stick to the inherited colonial borders", the text concludes. The document also mentions the 1963 Sand War between the two neighbouring countries.