By Ahmed Eljechtimi
RABAT (Reuters) – French Culture Minister Rachida Dati began a visit on Monday to disputed Western Sahara where she will meet officials and open a French cultural center in a show of support for Moroccan sovereignty over the desert territory.
The long-frozen conflict, dating back to 1975, pits Morocco, which considers the region its own, against the Algerian-backed Polisario Front independence movement.
“This is a strong symbolic and political moment,” Dati told Moroccan reporters. Her nation in July became the second permanent U.N. Security Council member after the U.S. to back Morocco’s position.
French President Emmanuel Macron visited Rabat in October telling parliament that Western Sahara was Moroccan, while his foreign minister promised to expand France’s consular presence to the territory.
Economic deals worth over $10 billion were signed during the presidential visit, following which Morocco mediated the release of four French spies held in Burkina Faso.
French support for Rabat over Western Sahara irks Algiers.
Morocco has also won backing from Western Sahara’s former colonial power Spain, as well as Israel and more than two dozen African and Arab nations.
The Polisario in 2020 withdrew from a U.N.-brokered truce but the conflict remains of low intensity.
(Reporting by Ahmed Eljechtimi; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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