Two kingdoms for peace and integration in the Sahara

Thus, in light of the recent meeting in Madrid between Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, during which they signed a mountain of important agreements between the two countries, the Kingdom of Spain has reiterated its full support for the autonomy plan for Western Sahara presented by King Mohammed VI of Morocco to the UN in 2007.

This time, Spain's endorsement, which once again bears the political stamp of the Moncloa Palace, as in 2022, has focused on UN Security Council Resolution 2797(2025) of October 31, 2025, which has built the course of autonomy -administrative government in the hands of the Sahrawi populations, under the mantle of the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Morocco, to which they are linked by the force of history, the logic of international law, and the will of the Sahrawi people themselves—for the definitive solution of the problem of the Moroccan Sahara.

I would like to highlight the extraordinary bilateral moment between Madrid and Rabat, which has been going on for some time now, showing itself to be a clear example of enormous political will at the highest level, to which even the skeptics have finally surrendered, if we consider that Spain was the last occupying power in the Sahara, a territory from which it severed ties forever in 1975, only to then cling, the momentous peaceful Green March of that same year, to the territorial integrity of the Alawite kingdom.

Spain is acting with realism and responsibility, looking at the course of history, and Pedro Sánchez is behaving like a statesman. The foreign ministers, José Manuel de Albares of Spain—we had a meeting in Bogotá on August 7, 2022—and Nasser Bourita of Morocco—we spoke by phone on August 18, 2022, and we met in Rabat on November 21, 2024—have forged excellent bilateral ties based on the instructions of their senior architects, the aforementioned head of the Spanish government and the head of state of the Kingdom of Morocco, His Majesty Mohamed VI.

All the good things that are happening bilaterally between Spain and Morocco—together with Portugal, the triumvirate that will organize the 2030 World Cup—confirm the willingness of the two kingdoms to go all the way, without stopping or getting distracted, in finding a definitive solution to the conflict in Western Sahara, a problem that has affected the stability of the Maghreb region (North Africa) and has left the countries of the difficult Sahel region, which once looked to the Atlantic as a utopia, in despair.

Today, everything is changing, and enormous possibilities are opening up that all those concerned with the problem must take advantage of, especially Algeria, which, dominated by its conspiratorial reticence, and at this stage of the game, increasingly isolated due to its quarrels with everyone, should take a look in the mirror so as not to continue wasting its time with its puppet, the Polisario, and sit down, agreeing to the firm will of the two kingdoms, Spain and Morocco, for total peace and integration.

Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Mackay. Former Foreign Minister of Peru and Internationalist

Article published in the Diario Expreso newspaper in Peru