Colombia’s Senate passed a motion on Tuesday recognizing Morocco’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over the Sahara and rejecting the Colombian government’s “unwise decision” to establish relations with the Polisario.
A majority of 65 Senators in Colombia’s upper house of Congress out of 105 voted for the motion, supporting Morocco’s full territorial integrity, and rejecting the Columbian state’s official position.
The signatories of the motion, which follows a similar one passed in October 2022, stated that they “categorically reject the establishment of ‘diplomatic relations’ with the separatist movement and the self-proclaimed ‘Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic,’ and even more so, the presence in Colombia of its so-called ‘ambassador.'”
“We regret that this government has once again turned a deaf ear not only to our Motion of October 19, 2022, signed by 63 Senators, representing nine political parties, but also to our numerous calls for respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Morocco,” stated the text of the motion.
“How can diplomatic relations be established with the separatist ‘polisario front’ movement, if the 1961 Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations clearly stipulates that such relations be established between sovereign states recognized as such, and that the separatist movement does not possess the minimum attributes of a state, is not recognized by the vast majority of countries, nor by the United Nations.”
The Senate also deplored the deep crisis in Colombia’s diplomatic relations, cooperation, and friendship with Morocco.
After Bogotá’s rapprochement with the separatist entity last year, Morocco terminated all collaboration, as well as all then-current agreements in areas critical to Colombia, such as agriculture, renewable energy, the port sector, railroads, and tourism.
Signatories include members of the Liberal Party and the Green Alliance Party (government coalition members), the Conservative Party, the U Party, the MIRA Party, the Independent Social Alliance Party and the En Marche Party (independents), and finally the Democratic Center Party and the Radical Change Party (opposition).
Senator German Alcides Blanco Alvarez, president of the Colombia/Morocco Friendship Group in the Senate and president of the Constitutional Committee, the largest party in the Colombian Congress, read out the resolution in plenary session.
The passed motion will be delivered to President Gustavo Petro and his Foreign Minister, Alvaro Leyva.