Morocco’s Makhzen Woos Mauritania After Guerguerat Incident

After the Mauritanian Government turned away from the Makhzen in the Guerguerat case, the Moroccan monarch, Mohamed VI, asked the Mauritanian President, Mohamed Ould Cheikh Al-Ghazwani, to schedule a visit for him to Nouakchott, hoping to drag Nouakchott to his side.

During the “Guerguerat Crisis” in Western Sahara, Morocco received support from some Arab countries far from the Maghreb, but the countries, which are geographically adjacent to the conflict zone, did not support the Moroccan move, which was a setback for the Moroccan side.

The countries directly concerned with the Sahrawi issue and which used to participate in dialogue sessions under the auspices of the United Nations are Algeria and Mauritania.

The first (Algeria) expressed its clear and frank position, which is to criticize what al-Makhzen has done strongly as threatening security in the Maghreb region, with the possibility of a new war breaking out that may be difficult to stop.

As for the second, Mauritania, it did not support Morocco in its violation of the ceasefire decision, according to what the Sahrawi side says, confirming its neutral position on this issue, as Nouakchott did not issue any statement in this regard, which shocked the Moroccan Makhzen, given that the country’s observed position is not like any other.

For their part, Tunisia and Libya ignored what happened in the southern part of the Maghreb.

Faced with this fact that does not serve the Moroccan side, Rabat seeks to dismantle the intractable Mauritanian position, through the phone call that the Moroccan monarch, Mohamed VI, made to the Mauritanian President, Mohamed Ould Cheikh El-Ghazouani, in order to schedule a visit for him to Nouakchott.

The phone call came at the height of the Guerguerat crisis, and it is an expression of Moroccan frustration with Nouakchott’s silence on this issue, whose repercussions reached the United Nations, and contributed to moving this file, which was in the dust in the drawers of UN Chief Antonio Guterres’s office in New York.

The King of the Makhzen asked his Mauritanian counterpart to schedule a visit for him to Nouakchott, as this visit coincides with the explosive situation in Western Sahara, this means that the Makhzen seeks to extract a supportive position from Nouakchott in the Guerguerat case, which will have repercussions at the level of the United Nations.

The UN has now revived this burning file, through the Secretary-General of this body, by seeking consensus among the members of the UN Security Council, in order to name a new UN envoy to Western Sahara, which has been vacant since the resignation of the former envoy, German Horst Kohler nearly two years ago.

Relations between Mauritania and Morocco suffer, just as relations between Algeria and Rabat suffer from a knot at the Makhzen, due to the territorial ambitions of the Makhzen in the territories of Algeria and Mauritania.

Just four years ago, the former Moroccan Prime Minister, Abdallah Benkirane, was forced to visit Nouakchott to calm the anger of the Mauritanians over a reckless statement by a Moroccan politician who considered Mauritania to be part of Moroccan sovereignty.

Echourouk, 22 nov 2020