RABAT (Reuters) -Paraguay plans to open a consulate in Western Sahara, joining African and Arab countries that have established diplomatic missions there in a sign of support for Morocco’s claim to the disputed territory, the Moroccan foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
The long-frozen conflict pits Morocco, which considers the territory as its own, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state there.
Morocco has been on a diplomatic push to gain support from Latin American countries like Paraguay that used to recognise the Polisario Front’s self-declared Sahrawi Arab Republic.
So far 29 countries have opened consulates in the Western Sahara cities of Laayoune and Dakhla in support of Morocco’s sovereignty over the territory. In the Western Hemisphere, Haiti, Suriname and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) have taken that step.
Paraguay also endorsed autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty as a solution to the conflict, the ministry said in a statement, following talks in Rabat between the two countries’ foreign ministers.
Within the U.N. Security Council, a Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory has full backing from the U.S., France and the UK.
Several European states have also backed the plan, though the European Union has not, and continues to support U.N. efforts to reach a political solution to the conflict.
(Reporting by Ahmed Eljechtimi; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
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