Diplomatic talks in Madrid follow rare multilateral meeting on Sahara

Morocco, Spain hold talks on Sahara as UN consultations continue

Morocco’s foreign minister, Nasser Bourita, was due to hold bilateral talks Monday in Madrid with his Spanish counterpart, Jose Manuel Albares, as consultations continue under the United Nations process to resolve the long-running  Sahara dispute.

Albares is also scheduled to meet separately with the U.N. secretary-general’s personal envoy for the Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, as part of ongoing discussions linked to the U.N.-led political track.

The meetings follow a first-of-its-kind round of consultations hosted by the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, which brought together all parties to the dispute, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario Front, in the presence of U.S. officials and the U.N. envoy. The talks were aimed at reviving efforts toward a political settlement in line with U.N. Security Council resolutions.

During those consultations, Bourita outlined the main elements of Morocco’s updated autonomy proposal for th Sahara, presenting it as a realistic and practical framework for resolving the dispute.

The proposal is based on U.N. Security Council Resolution 2797, adopted in October 2025, which described autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty as the sole basis for a viable political solution.

The closed-door meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid was held under the direct sponsorship of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

It was overseen by White House adviser for African and Middle Eastern affairs Massad Boulos, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz, and U.S. Embassy chargé d’affaires Ryan Harker Harris, with De Mistura also in attendance.

Participants included Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf, Mauritanian Foreign Minister Mohamed Salem Ould Merzoug, and a Polisario Front delegation led by Mohamed Yeslem Beissat, along with Sidi Mohamed Ammar, the group’s coordinator with the U.N. mission in Sahara, and its representative in Washington, Mouloud Said.

According to informed sources, the consultations resulted in the outline of a “Madrid Roadmap 2026,” setting out the next phase of the process.

The plan reportedly includes a new round of negotiations to be held in Washington before April, focusing on the details of Morocco’s updated proposal, which is to be formally submitted to the United Nations.

The roadmap also envisages the signing of a political framework agreement among the four parties, introducing a defined timeline after years of diplomatic stagnation.

The developments come after the adoption of Security Council Resolution 2797, following which Morocco, under royal instructions, began preparing a revised and more detailed version of its autonomy initiative, aimed at providing a comprehensive negotiating framework and achieving a lasting political settlement.

King Mohammed VI previously announced, in a national address following the Security Council vote, that Morocco would submit the updated proposal to the United Nations as the sole basis for negotiations, reaffirming autonomy as the final and realistic solution to the dispute.

In that context, the Royal Cabinet convened a meeting on Nov. 10, 2025, chaired by royal advisers Taieb Fassi Fihri, Omar Azziman and Fouad Ali El Himma, and attended by leaders of political parties represented in parliament, as well as the interior and foreign ministers.

The meeting focused on refining the autonomy proposal in line with royal directives, with the aim of presenting a detailed and unified national proposal to the United Nations.