On Wednesday, there was uncertainty about whether Nairobi had severed ties with the disputed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in Western Sahara, after Kenya’s new president announced the break but then deleted his tweet.
A day after taking office, President William Ruto announced on Twitter, following a meeting with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, that “Kenya rescinds its recognition of the SADR and initiates steps to wind down the entity’s presence in the country.”
President Ruto stated that Kenya would close the SADR mission in Nairobi and support Morocco, a first for an African Union member.
However, he later removed the tweet without explanation.
The announcement came just a day after the leader of the Polisario independence movement, Brahim Ghali, attended Dr Ruto’s inauguration as president in Nairobi.
The Algerian-backed Polisario Front seeks independence for Western Sahara, a vast stretch of mineral-rich desert that Morocco claims as its own.
Dr Ruto stated that Bourita had received a congratulatory message from Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, and that the two countries had agreed to strengthen ties “in areas such as trade, agriculture, health, tourism, and energy, among others.”
“Kenya supports the United Nations framework as the exclusive mechanism to find a lasting solution of the dispute,” Dr Ruto said of the Western Sahara issue in another tweet that remained on his account late on Wednesday.
The Polisario Front declared a Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) the following year, with support from Algeria and Libya, and demanded a referendum on self-determination.
Since then, the SADR has been recognized by 84 UN member states.
But a stalemate ensued, and Morocco constructed razor-wire-topped concentric sand walls in the desert that still encircle 80 percent of its territory.
The UN, which considers Western Sahara “a non-self-governing territory,” deployed a peacekeeping mission under a 1991 cease-fire.
The international community has long supported a referendum to determine the status of the territory.
However, Morocco opposes any vote that includes the option of independence, claiming that only granting autonomy is on the table for the sake of regional security.
In a speech last month, King Mohammed demanded that Morocco’s allies “clarify” their positions on the issue, referring to it as “the prism through which Morocco views its international environment.”
The Sahrawi Arab Republic is a member of the African Union.
