US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said Wednesday in Rabat that his country wants a peaceful and quick solution to the dispute over Western Sahara, based on the latest Security Council resolution regarding it. Morocco controls most of Western Sahara, but the United Nations considers it a "non-self-governing territory."

Published on: 04/29/2026 - 21:59

US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau explained on Wednesday from Rabat that the United States is looking forward to a peaceful solution to the Western Sahara conflict.

Landau said, "We are trying, within the framework of the latest Security Council resolution, to reach a peaceful solution to this conflict that has been going on for an unacceptable period."

“We look forward to a peaceful and quick solution.”

He added, "We look forward to a peaceful solution, but also a quick solution, because the situation cannot wait another fifty, one hundred, or one hundred and fifty years to be resolved."

Landau's words came in a press conference with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita on the occasion of his visit to Morocco, as part of a tour he began Monday in Algeria.

For his part, Bourita said, “Today the United States is sponsoring... a path that we hope will lead to a final solution, within one framework, which is the autonomy initiative under Moroccan sovereignty.”

"Most viable solution"

It is noteworthy that, last October, at the initiative of the administration of US President Donald Trump, the UN Security Council provided unprecedented support for the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco in 2007, considering it “the most viable solution” to end this conflict. It was a decision that Morocco welcomed, while the Polisario Front and Algeria rejected it when it was adopted.

However, since the beginning of the year, the United Nations and the United States have organized, based on it, three rounds of negotiations between representatives of Morocco, the Polisario Front, Algeria, and Mauritania, which are “the first direct negotiations in seven years,” according to what the United Nations Special Envoy to Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, said on Friday, in a speech before a closed session of the UN Security Council seen by Agence France-Presse.

“Real momentum to resolve the conflict”

The UN envoy said, "We entered (during these negotiations) into the details of what could be the features of a political solution, a mutually acceptable governance structure for Western Sahara, and ways to ensure that the principle of self-determination is taken into account," explaining that there is "real momentum" and "opportunity" to resolve this conflict.

Morocco controls most of Western Sahara, but the United Nations considers it a “non-self-governing territory,” a name it gives to areas whose peoples “have not achieved a full degree of self-government.”

It is noteworthy that the Western Sahara region has witnessed a conflict between Rabat and the Algerian-backed separatist Polisario Front since 1975.

France 24/AFP

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