CAIRO: Western Sahara’s Information Ministry on Sunday strongly condemned France’s decision to use the French Development Agency (AFD) to aid projects in the disputed Sahrawi regions.
Morocco considers Western Sahara as its own territory but an Algeria-backed independence movement declare it a sovereign state.
The ministry in a statement terms the French plan dangerous and hostile towards the Sahrawi people. It added France’s decision shows open support for Morocco’s illegal occupation of parts of Western Sahara.
The statement came after foreign trade minister of France, Franck Riester, paid a visit to Morocco last week.
Riester in a post on X, said the renewal of French-Moroccan ties will involve new bridges between the two private sectors.
According to French media, Riester hinted that the AFD, via its private sector financing arm Proparco, could fund a project of a high-voltage power line between Dakhla, Western Sahara’s capital, and the Moroccan port city of Casablanca.
The statement from Western Sahara’s Information Ministry said the Sahrawi government once again calls upon all nations of the world and the public and private sectors to avoid from carrying out any activity of in the Sahrawi national territory.
Morocco received most of Western Sahara in 1975 from colonial Spain. That started a guerrilla war from Sahrawi people’s Polisario Front, which says the territory in the northwest of African desert belongs to it.
The United Nations brokered a ceasefire agreement in 1991 and sent in a mission to help organize a referendum regarding the future of the territory. However, there is deadlock from the sides over the issue.
