Autonomy for the Moroccan Sahara that Algeria will accept

Without triumphalism, this stems from UN Security Council Resolution 2797(2025), adopted during its 10030th session on 31 October 2025. In other words, as of this date, autonomy (administrative self-government), which was proposed in 2007 by the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, to ‘end the impasse and move towards a political solution’, as requested by the Security Council, has become, thanks to overwhelming approval within the Council (11 votes in favour, 3 abstentions, 0 against and Algeria did not participate), the basis for such a definitive solution, i.e. autonomy, now framed within Res/2797 – that is its attribute as a historic milestone – is the ideal formula for political settlement between all parties, i.e. Morocco, the Polisario, Algeria and Mauritania (neutral), involved in the consultations that the UN Secretary-General's Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, has been conducting, as stated in the resolution, with no possibility for Algeria to continue to evade being part of the conflict, something that its Permanent Representative to the UN, Ammar Benjameh, had hinted at during his speech at the end of the vote. 

Beyond the fact that the resolution reiterates ‘a solution for all parties’ and never says ‘for the parties’ (which are usually two) or ‘for the two parties’, Algeria has been deeply involved in the problem for more than 50 years, putting obstacles in the way of Morocco's sovereignty over its Sahara and conspiring against the territorial integrity of the Kingdom. 

A rumoured Algerian visit, separate from those involved, to Washington, and the confirmed visit by Trump's adviser, Massad Boulos, to Algiers, would dispel any doubts about its unconditional acceptance, in line with its gesture of amends for not voting in the Security Council, taking care not to oppose the resolution and not to become emboldened, taking refuge in a discreet ‘distancing’ as Benjameh said. 

Thus, by not abandoning his seat in the session, accepting everything, he laid bare his complex external circumstances, and today, sitting down to talk, or something close to it, with the US, author of draft Res/2797, his regime must be calculating with little margin, no longer reluctantly, but with enormous secrecy, the immediate future, looking at the mirror of Venezuela or the case of Iran, and an Algeria without Russia or China, and with a Trump determined to end conflicts on the planet.  

Algeria knows that autonomy has not been imposed or decided – the Security Council is not a court, but it is the UN with the force of its ecumenism, despite its shortcomings – but has been approved as the best starting point for immediate negotiation, and it must accept the history and unquestionable functional sovereignty of Morocco over the Sahara, which it has transformed with impressive investments in infrastructure for territorial development – its international legitimacy reflected realistically in Res/2797 – validating that self-determination through integration – which the Sahrawis want – is absolutely compatible with autonomy. 

Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Mackay Former Foreign Minister of Peru and Internationalist

Article published in the Diario Expreso newspaper in Peru