In his last tour in the Middle East, Arab leaders made clear to the U.S. Department Secretary, Antony J. Blinken that they wanted a concrete sign of the Biden administration’s support for the opening of U.S. consulates in both Jerusalem and Sahara which is under the sovereignty of Morocco, reported today, the New York Times.
According to the same source, Blinken “studiously avoided any public commitment as to when those diplomatic missions might become a reality, if ever.”
“The fate of the consulates already promised by the United States — one to serve Palestinians in Jerusalem and the other in Western Sahara — has hung over the Biden administration since its earliest days.”, the New York Times pointed out.
With regard to the consulate of the Moroccan Sahara, it is considered one of the commitments promised by former US President Donald Trump, who signed a decree recognizing the United States' sovereignty over the Sahara, in exchange for Rabat's normalization of relations with Israel.
Among the decisions that the United States announced its intention to implement after the tripartite Moroccan-Israeli-American agreement, was Washington’s opening of a consulate in the city of Dakhla, but Trump’s defeat in the American elections and the rise of Joe Biden, put all those commitments in a state of unknown suspension to the how long it will last.
Anyway, The New York Times showed that there is great support from many Arab countries for the Kingdom of Morocco in the issue of the Sahara, and the concerted efforts of the Arabs to end this long-lived conflict, leaving only Algeria on the opposite bank before the Arab majority, where it still supports the secession thesis Promoted by the "Polisario".
