The United States agreed to recognize Morocco's claim over Western Sahara as part of a deal engineered by Washington for the normalization of ties between Morocco and Israel. The American diplomat is scheduled to head Sunday to Dakhla, a seaside town with a fishing port where the official U.S. presence in the Western Sahara likely is to be set up over time. Washington's decision to recognize Morocco's claim over the Western Sahara, which the North African kingdom annexed from Spain in 1975, was a major policy shift. Schenker on Saturday also visited the headquarters of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara, known as Minurso. Algerian Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum told him that Algeria seeks "impartiality" from the United States on the matter, the official APS news agency quoted a ministry statement as saying.

Source: The North Africa Journal January 09, 2021 16:18 UTC