2023-04-27 00:54:00
The majority of the members of the Colombian Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee castigated, on Wednesday, the participation of a representative of the separatist movement Front Polisario in a seminar in the Senate on relations between Africa and Colombia, and rejected “categorically” any type of relationship with the separatists.
Eight senators out of the twelve members who make up the Foreign Affairs Committee signed a motion in which they recalled that this separatist movement “is not recognized as a country by the United Nations and does not represent, in any case, a partner for the Colombia”, reaffirming “the fundamental principles of our diplomacy, which is respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States”.
The signatories stress that “at the initiative of the President of the Second Committee of the Senate of the Republic (Foreign Affairs), a meeting is being held on April 26, 2023 to take stock of the need to strengthen relations between Africa and Colombia, with a view to boosting diplomatic, economic, commercial and cultural relations between Africa and Colombia and taking stock of the history and situation of the continent in order to open a space for dialogue to strengthen an agenda commmon “.
“In the spirit of broadening and diversifying our relations with this important continent, the members of the Second Committee of the Senate, welcome the initiative aimed at strengthening ties between Colombia and African countries and opening spaces dialogue to strengthen cooperation in all areas”, continues the motion, which was endorsed by the most representative parties in the Senate, both the majority and the opposition.
“However, and given one of the fundamental principles of our diplomacy, which is respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States, we deeply and categorically reject any type of relationship (with the Polisario) and even more participation (by videoconference in this meeting held) in the Senate of the Republic of representatives of the separatist movement of the Polisario Front, which is not recognized as a country by the United Nations and in no way represents a partner for Colombia”, reads -on in the text of the motion.
The signatories recall, in this context, that “the motion published by the Senate of the Republic of Colombia, on October 19, 2022, signed by 63 senators (out of 108) from various political tendencies, in which we expressed our firm position of support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Morocco” qualifying the Kingdom as “an ally with which we maintain excellent ties of friendship, which have bound us historically for nearly half a century, and which represents for Colombia a strategic and privileged partner in Africa and the Arab world, given its leadership and recognition at the regional, continental and global level”.
Affirming their “adhesion to the principle of a single Morocco”, the signatories reiterate their “support for the Moroccan initiative for the negotiation of a statute of autonomy for the Sahara region, the pre-eminence of which is enshrined in the 18 resolutions of the United Nations Security Council since 2007 and which preserves the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Morocco”, concludes the text of the motion.
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