AP, United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned Tuesday that Morocco’s expulsion of most of the U.N. peacekeeping mission’s civilian staff in the disputed Western Sahara will likely be exploited by “terrorist and radical elements” and could lead to full-scale war.
In a rebuke to Morocco’s unilateral action, the U.N. chief urged the Security Council to “restore and support” the mission’s role of monitoring a cease-fire between the Moroccan government and the Polisario Front independence movement and helping organize a referendum on the future of the Western Sahara. He recommended in a report to the council obtained by The Associated Press that the council extend the mission’s mandate until April 30, 2017, with the addition of 14 medical staff. Morocco annexed Western Sahara in 1975 and considers it as its “southern provinces.”