In New York, Bourita orchestrates broad diplomatic campaign to anchor Sahara autonomy plan

Morocco’s foreign minister arrived at the United Nations this week with a mission to make sure the decades-long fight over the Sahara tilts the Kingdom ’s way before the Security Council takes it up again in October.

Bourita huddled with UN envoy Staffan de Mistura, conferred with Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, secured face time with US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and met Spain’s José Manuel Albares, all while threading in conversations with African, Latin  and Gulf counterparts.

At the heart of every exchange was the same pitch: Morocco’s autonomy plan for the Sahara is the only workable answer to a dispute that has dragged on for nearly half a century.

The meeting with de Mistura was the most closely watched, as the U.N. mediator prepares his annual briefing to the Security Council, where diplomats say Morocco’s plan is increasingly viewed as the lone “serious and credible” option. 

Bourita’s agenda pulled in Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov for a discussion that touched on both bilateral ties and global security issues, while delicately circling back to Moscow’s role on the Council. 

With Russia due to assume the Council presidency later this year, Moroccan officials view such conversations as essential in ensuring that no veto-wielding power undercuts what Rabat has built with its allies.

The message was reinforced on another front when Bourita met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who not only reiterated Washington’s recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara,  first announced in 2020,  but went further in urging American businesses to consider investment in the territory. 

European voices also figured prominently in Bourita’s itinerary. Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, echoed support for Morocco’s framework, reflecting a shift in Madrid’s position that has tilted more firmly toward Rabat in recent years. 

Conversations with members of Congress and with European and Gulf counterparts added to the impression of a carefully choreographed effort to project momentum, turning bilateral reassurances into what Moroccan analysts describe as a rolling consensus.

Beyond the Sahara

Bourita’s diplomacy was not limited to the Sahara file. He gathered with the foreign ministers of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Chad to push King Mohammed VI’s “Atlantic Initiative,”  a plan to connect landlocked Sahel states to the ocean through Moroccan ports. 

“The diplomacy is playing on multiple chessboards at once,” said Abderrahim Manar Slimi, head of the Atlantic Center for Strategic Studies in Rabat. “Morocco is talking to Washington, to Moscow, to the Gulf, to the Sahel. It shows they are operating not just as a regional actor but as a supra-regional one.”

A narrowing window

 The Security Council is due to renew the mandate of the UN mission in the Sahara next month, and Morocco wants the autonomy plan firmly entrenched as the only path on the table.

 The effort also comes weeks before the 50th anniversary of the Green March, the mass mobilization that cemented Moroccan control over the territory.

For Sahrawi leaders who back Rabat’s position, the symbolism is striking. Abdelkader Brehima, a tribal notable, said the week of diplomacy “marks a shift from defending a position to imposing an agenda.”

By contrast, Algeria’s foreign minister, Ahmed Attaf, has staged a more muted presence in New York, limited to talks with de Mistura and a handful of sympathetic states. Algiers continues to back the Polisario Front, which calls for a referendum on independence,  a plan most Security Council members view as politically unrealistic.

“Morocco is playing offense, Algeria is playing defense,” Slimi said. “That contrast is showing.”