Rabat: In a statement, the Party’s Executive Committee expressed its ‘great pride’ in the ‘historic’ Royal Speech, which carries “new strategic orientations and profound transformations” marking a new phase in the Moroccan Sahara issue – one that moves from a phase of management to a dynamic of change, through the ‘definitive consolidation of the Kingdom’s territorial integrity within the framework of a political solution based on the autonomy initiative.”

According to Agence Marocaine De Presse, Istiqlal praised the wisdom and foresight of His Majesty the King in shaping the next phase within a constructive spirit and a policy of outreach, far from any logic of victor and vanquished. The party also commended the firm Royal will to welcome the “brothers in the Tindouf camps” and to ensure that they enjoy all rights and all conditions of dignity on an equal footing with ‘their brothers living in the rest of the national territory.”

The party further hailed the Sovereign’s determination to build the Union of the Arab Maghreb with its five countries, enjoying freedom, security, stability, and development, with the goal of bringing prosperity and a decent life to its peoples. The Istiqlal Party welcomed the Security Council’s decision regarding the Moroccan Sahara issue, which enshrines ‘the autonomy plan for our southern provinces under Moroccan sovereignty’ as the pragmatic and realistic basis, it says, for the final settlement of this artificial dispute.

Furthermore, the party considers that the autonomy plan in the southern provinces marks the beginning of a new stage on the path toward national unity and the consolidation of democratic choice – a stage characterized by a dynamic of development and by major economic and social structuring projects that benefit the inhabitants of the region.