The King of Morocco Mohammed VI has ruled out any peace deal that allows for the independence of the disputed territory of Western Sahara, the AFP news agency reports.
The monarch said in a televised address on Monday that Morocco would not relent its claim over the territory.
“No settlement of the Sahara affair is possible outside the framework of the full sovereignty of Morocco over its Sahara and the autonomy initiative, whose seriousness and credibility the international community has recognised,” the king said.
His address was marking 42 years since hundreds of thousands of Moroccan civilians marched across the border to lay claim to the mineral-rich territory.
His comments come amid renewed efforts by the UN to resolve the decades-old dispute.
The UN has a standing peacekeeping force in Western Sahara since 1991 with a mandate to organise a referendum on its independence or integration with Morocco.
Morocco agreed to the vote in a 1988 agreement with the pro-independence Polisario Front that ended 13 years of conflict but has since blocked it being held, saying it will accept only autonomy for the territory.
In January Morocco rejoined the African Union decades after it left the organisation for its support for the independence of Western Sahara.
Many African governments still recognise Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as a state in control of the region.
The king said in his address that Morocco would press ahead with its own plans for the development of the Western Sahara, regardless of the progress of the new peace push.
“We are not going to sit idly by waiting for the solution to be found,” he said. “We will continue to stimulate the development of our southern provinces and provide their people with the conditions for a free and dignified life.”
Tens of thousands of Sahrawi refugees have lived for decades in desert camps run by the Polisario in neighbouring Algeria.
