Moroccan Sahara: Iran, the New Advocate for Separatist “Polisario” at the UN

Iran has set itself up as an advocate for Separatist “Polisario” after having kept a low profile for three years since being caught in the act of plotting against Morocco.

Moroccan Foreign Minister Bourita then revealed the military-ideological alliance of Iran, Algeria, the Polisario and Hezbollah.

Three years after Morocco’s decision to suspend diplomatic relations with Iran; Iranian officials admitted that they were secretly plotting at the time with Algeria against the Kingdom of Morocco. The daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia reports, in its March 16th edition, that Iran has set itself up as an advocate for the Polisario separatists at the UN.

On the other hand, the Algerian Press Service (APS), reported that an adviser to Iran’s diplomatic mission to the UN has expressed his country’s position, supporting self-determination in the Moroccan Sahara, and calling on Morocco to “stop interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and contesting their regional security”.

It is necessary, he added while insisting on the bygone thesis of self-determination, for the international community to commit to implementing the UN recommendations on the Sahara. The exit of the Iranian representative shows that the astonishment of the Ayatollahs who had, three years ago, expressed their amazement at Morocco’s decision to suspend relations with their country, was only a decoy to hide the plots that ‘they fomented in Algeria against the Kingdom. Moroccan diplomacy then demonstrated, with supporting evidence, the ties that Iranian diplomats were forging in Algeria with the Polisario.

During a press conference, Nasser Bourita, Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates, also declared that the decision to suspend diplomatic relations with Iran was “a response to Iran’s involvement, via Hezbollah, in an alliance with the Polisario aimed at undermining the security of Morocco and its superior interests”.

Bourita then referred to irrefutable evidence he presented to his Iranian counterpart during his visit to Tehran. In details, the Moroccan minister revealed that this quadripartite alliance (Iran, Algeria, Hezbollah and Polisario) against Morocco had started in 2016, when a commission to support the “Saharawi people” had been set up in Lebanon under the aegis of Hezbollah.

This was followed by the visit of a Hezbollah military delegation to Polisario camps in Algeria. The turning point in this affair, Bourita explains, occurred on March 12th, 2017, when Hezbollah’s finance officer in Africa, Kacem Mohamed Tajeddine, was arrested at Mohammed V airport following an international arrest warrant launched against him by the United States, accusing him of money laundering and terrorism.

Since then, Bourita said, officials of the Lebanese Shiite party, subservient to Iran, have continued to utter threats against Morocco to “avenge one of their own”. They sent weapons and military cadres to train the Polisario members, in order to prepare armed attacks against Morocco. Suffice to say that the Iranian Ayatollahs were indeed involved in the arming and supervision of the separatists when Bourita denounced them in 2018. The Iranians then denied any involvement, despite irrefutable evidence.

It took Iran three years to publicly confess that they had indeed forged a hostile alliance in Morocco with the Polisario and Algeria, via Hezbollah.