Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario / DR ‹ › The Polisario Front is seeking to downplay what it describes as the erosion of its support on the international stage. «We maintain our support, and the recognition of the Sahrawi state is a permanent recognition under international law; it does not disappear», said Abdellah Arabi, the Polisario's representative in Spain, in an interview with a media outlet in the Canary Islands. «Some governments change the nature of their relations, freeze them, or withdraw them, but the recognition of the Sahrawi state remains intact. This is part of the narrative that Morocco seeks to promote. We remain a founding member of the African Union and maintain relations with the majority of countries, 84, to be exact, that recognize the Sahrawi state», he added. These remarks come two weeks after Bolivia announced the suspension of its recognition of the «Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)». Arabi also sought to downplay what he described as the growing international support for Morocco's autonomy initiative for Western Sahara. «These positions do not exclude the other option: the self-determination of the Sahrawi people. Morocco uses this propaganda to try, in theory, to rally support for its autonomy proposal. But in reality, all these countries that have expressed their views frame the solution within the context of international law. When they invoke it, they refer to United Nations resolutions, all of which provide for a referendum», he said. A similar position was expressed by the Polisario's representative in New York, who described the Moroccan autonomy plan as a «dangerous maneuver». Last February, the Trump administration launched two rounds of discussions on the Western Sahara issue, bringing together Morocco, Algeria, the Polisario Front, and Mauritania around the Moroccan autonomy proposal.
