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STORY: UN / WESTERN SAHARA
TRT: 02:28
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / RUSSIAN / NATS
DATELINE: 27 APRIL 2018, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
27 APRIL 2018, NEW YORK CITY
2. Various shots, Security Council vote
3. Med shot, delegates
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Amy Tachco, Political Coordinator of the Permanent Mission of the United States to the United Nations:
“The fact is that we as a Security Council have allowed Western Sahara to lapse into a textbook example of a frozen conflict. And MINURSO is a textbook example of a peacekeeping mission that no longer serves a political purpose. So, this year, the United States has taken a different approach with this renewal. Our goal is to send two messages. The first is that there can be no more “business as usual” with MINURSO and Western Sahara. The second is that the time is now to lend our support, our full support for Personal Envoy Kohler in his efforts to facilitate negotiations with the parties. The United States wants to see progress at last in the political process meant to resolve this conflict. That is why we have renewed the MINURSO mandate for six months, instead of one year.”
5. Med shot, delegates
5. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vladimir Safronkov, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations:
“We must warn that the document which passed today, contrary to the expectations of its sponsors, could end up having a negative effect as regards the efforts by the new Personal Envoy, Mr. Kohler, who is trying to revive the political process. The attempts to speed the process alone could lead to results which are the opposite of what we are hoping for.”
10. Wide shot, Council
11. Pan left, Moroccan Ambassador walks up to the podium
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Omar Hilale, Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Morocco to the United Nations:
“If they will not withdraw there will be no political process. I am saying here and I am repeating, to Polisario and to Algeria, not political process as far as Polisario is violating the ceasefire and also trying to transfer their so-called structure. So, we have to choose, either provocation and violation, they will have the Security Council in front of them, or the political process. The ball is in their side.”
13. Wide shot, Hilale walks away.
The Security Council today (27 Apr) adopted a resolution to extend the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) for six months until October 31, 2018. The resolution was adopted without consensus with the abstentions of China, Ethiopia and the Russian Federation.
United States Ambassador, Amy Tachco, said the Security Council “have allowed Western Sahara to lapse into a textbook example of a frozen conflict” and MINURSO “a textbook example of a peacekeeping mission that no longer serves a political purpose.”
Tachco expressed “full support for Personal Envoy Kohler in his efforts to facilitate negotiations with the parties” and stated that the United States “wants to see progress at last in the political process meant to resolve this conflict.”
She said, that this is why “we have renewed the MINURSO mandate for six months, instead of one year.”
The United States is the penholder of the draft resolution.
Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov of the Russian Federation, which abstained, said, “we must warn that the document which passed today, contrary to the expectations of its sponsors, could end up having a negative effect as regards the efforts by the new Personal Envoy, Mr. Kohler, who is trying to revive the political process.”
He added that “the attempts to speed the process alone could lead to results which are the opposite of what we are hoping for.”
Outside the Council, Moroccan Ambassador Omar Hilale told journalists that if the Polisario Front will not withdraw from the buffer strip in Guerguerat, “there will be no political process.”
Hilale said, “I am repeating, to Polisario and to Algeria, not political process as far as Polisario is violating the ceasefire and also trying to transfer their so-called structure,” referring to the announcement in late March that the Polisario Front would relocate administrative functions to Bir Lahlou and Tifariti.
He said “we have to choose, either provocation and violation, they will have the Security Council in front of them, or the political process. The ball is in their side.”
The resolution requests the Secretary-General to provide a report on the situation in Western Sahara “well before the end of the mandate period”.
