Seemingly out of nowhere, high-level negotiations between Morocco and the Western Saharan independence movement have resumed after a hiatus of nearly seven years.
Equally surprising is the pace of these encounters: three so far since late January 2026 – two in Washington, DC, and one in Madrid.
For two decades, UN mediators had been fortunate to persuade Morocco and the Sahrawi nationalists, led by the Polisario Front, to meet more than twice in one year – if at all. The peace process had otherwise become a textbook case of failed diplomacy.
The simple reason for this sudden burst of diplomacy is the second Trump administration, which wants to resolve the fifty-year-old dispute over Africa’s last non-self-governing territory as quickly as possible.
To that end, these recent negotiations have been led by the US – a significant departure from 40-years of UN precedent. Staffan De Mistura, the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Western Sahara since 2021, now co-chairs these meetings alongside Michael Waltz, America’s UN ambassador. Massad Boulos, a senior Trump adviser for African and Arab affairs, has also played a leading role, bringing high-level White House interest to the table.
These unprecedented developments would seem to suggest the possibility of an end to one of Africa’s oldest conflicts, which has also been the greatest impediment to good relations between regional hegemons Morocco and Algeria.
But in the case of Western Sahara, the Trump administration’s ‘move fast and break things’ approach to foreign policy will not alter the conflict’s deep underlying structures by seeking to impose Moroccan annexation on the territory.
A more balanced approach is needed – one in which both Morocco and Polisario accept an equal amount of risk for the opportunity of peace. For that to happen, US and UN mediators first need to dispel the ‘destructive ambiguity’ that currently surrounds the peace process. They can do so by securing Morocco and Polisario’s commitment to confidence-building measures and a negotiating framework consistent with the current, albeit flawed, Security Council mandate for Western Sahara.
Saharan stasis
As in past Western Sahara talks, representatives of Mauritania and Algeria – officially as neighbouring countries – also attended the January and February rounds. Algeria has long been the strongest moral and material supporter of the Western Saharan independence movement since Morocco invaded the territory in 1975, driving colonial Spain out.
A fifteen-year low-intensity conflict between Morocco and Polisario came to an end in 1991 when both sides agreed to hold a plebiscite on independence under UN auspices. Given the Chapter VI (non-coercive) nature of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), the Security Council realized in early 2000 that it could easily face another East Timor scenario if the Kingdom of Morocco simply refused to leave the territory after the Sahrawis voted to become an independent republic.
In the two and a half decades that followed, five UN envoys have tried and failed to persuade the parties either to accept UN proposals or to develop their own formulas to bridge the seemingly incommensurable divide between Morocco’s assertion of sovereignty and Western Sahara’s international legal right to independence.
A dubious mandate
Officially, the latest talks on Western Sahara were mandated by Security Council Resolution 2797, adopted – ironically enough – on 31 October 2025, the fiftieth anniversary of Morocco’s invasion of what was then called Spanish Sahara.
Like previous resolutions, Resolution 2797 continued to recognize Western Sahara’s right to self-determination under UN decolonization norms, as well as the need for negotiations without preconditions leading to a mutually agreed, just and durable political solution.
But 2797 also twice inserted an awkwardly worded request for the parties to re-engage in negotiations by ‘taking as basis [sic] Morocco’s Autonomy Proposal’ (emphasis added).
Anyone familiar with the labours that go into crafting Security Council resolutions will understand the significance of using either the definite or the indefinite article – that is, whether a proposal is framed as the basis for negotiations or merely as a basis among several options. In this instance, the French and US delegations introduced an ambiguous formulation that defied the rules of grammar in order frame Rabat’s 2007 plan for limited devolved self-governance – which rules out any pathway to independence – as a necessary component of future negotiations. Following 2797’s passing, Rabat and supporters were quick to claim the UN had endorsed the eventual annexation of the territory.
At best, the constructive ambiguity of Resolution 2797 achieved a pyrrhic victory. It now stands as the least supported and most divisive Security Council resolution on Western Sahara in nearly four decades of engagement on the issue.
A telling counterexample is the Council’s undivided support for a 2003 autonomy and self-determination proposal put forward by then UN envoy James Baker, the former US Secretary of State. Morocco vehemently rejected the ‘Baker Plan,’ which Polisario still accepts. The proposal received a much stronger and unanimous endorsement (15–0) from the Council than Morocco’s annexation proposal did in Resolution 2797.
Indeed, 2797 saw abstentions from China and Russia, as well as Pakistan. Algeria, then holding a rotating seat, took the step of refusing to dignify the proceedings with a vote. Had Washington attempted to push ahead with its partisan first draft of the Resolution in October, which would have departed from Security Council neutrality by imposing Morocco’s autonomy proposal as the exclusive and final basis of negotiations, Moscow and Beijing would likely have vetoed those efforts, terminating the UN mission in Western Sahara and sending the peace process back to square one. As Russia and China made clear in their vote explanations, their abstentions are a sign of deep concern regarding the current direction of the Western Sahara peace process under American unilateralism, yet those concerns do not yet rise to the level of warranting a veto for Moscow and Beijing.
Lemonade out of lemons?
All is not lost, however. Recent statements by US officials reveal a growing understanding that resolving a 50-year-old territorial conflict in two months is easier said than done.
Morocco’s and Polisario’s divergent understanding of the parameters of the talks reveal that Resolution 2797’s ambiguity is anything but constructive.
On the one hand, Morocco insists that these are technical talks aimed at implementing its recently revised and expanded proposal to annex the territory while conceding proscribed administrative autonomy.
On the other hand, Polisario is willing to engage in broad and far-ranging discussions that could include Morocco’s proposal, provided negotiations are not limited to it under the Security Council’s longstanding call for talks without preconditions affirmed in Resolution 2797.
These divergent understandings have been exacerbated by Washington’s partisan bias going into these talks.
A more patient, balanced and transparent approach is thus warranted. Reaching a settlement in Western Sahara will require a clear and agreed negotiating framework that encompasses Resolution 2797 in its totality. Though key North Atlantic powers on the Security Council may be committed to Resolution 2797, it should be noted that Morocco and Polisario are formally not – and under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, they cannot be compelled otherwise.
As a starting point, the US and UN chairs of the process should ask Morocco and Polisario to engage in meaningful confidence-building measures, starting with the release of prominent Sahrawi political prisoners in Moroccan jails and a cessation of attacks by Polisario forces throughout the duration of talks.
From there, future rounds should initially focus on forging a mutually agreed statement of negotiating principles consistent with all of Resolution 2797’s parameters. This document would then be undersigned by Algeria, Mauritania, the UN and the US, allowing for negotiations to ease into a more technical phase.
Such a statement of peace principles would not only allow the process to move forward but would constitute a major breakthrough: the first signed agreement between Morocco and Polisario in nearly three decades.
