The U.N. Security Council rejected competing proposals, leaving the peacekeeping mission without an approved extension.
Published on October 31, 2026
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara faces an uncertain future after the failure of competing resolutions by the United States and Russia at the UN Security Council.
Russia vetoed the U.S.-backed proposal on Friday, despite support from 11 of the council’s 15 members, including permanent members France and the United Kingdom.
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A rival Russian draft then failed to obtain the nine votes needed for adoption, receiving two votes in favor, one against and 11 abstentions.
The mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is set to expire on Saturday unless the council reaches a last-minute agreement.
Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony in northwest Africa. Morocco considers the territory its own while the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria, seeks to establish an independent state called the Sahrawi Republic.
The UN created MINURSO in 1991 to monitor a ceasefire and prepare for a referendum on the territory’s future, but disagreements over who could vote prevented the referendum from taking place.
The mission has 155 troops and is expected to cost $62 million for the exercise that began in June, according to a report by the UN secretary-general.
The American plan would have extended the mission by a year, removed the term “referendum” from its name and made Morocco’s autonomy proposal the sole basis for new negotiations.
According to this plan, the territory would manage its internal affairs but would remain under Moroccan sovereignty.
The Council had already made this proposal a basis for negotiations last year and had asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to submit an assessment of the peacekeeping mission.
US Ambassador Mike Waltz told the Council in New York on Friday that the referendum had been deadlocked for decades.
Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said at the same meeting that Moscow opposed the project because it favored one side.
“We emphasize the fact that the Security Council cannot automatically predetermine issues related to sovereignty,” he said.
Russia instead proposed renewing the existing mission without these changes.
Morocco’s royal palace welcomed the failure to renew MINURSO, saying on Friday that UN personnel and equipment should leave the territory in the coming days and that the question of Western Sahara should now be removed from consideration by the Security Council. Morocco said it remained committed to the ceasefire.
Sidi Omar, the Polisario Front representative to the UN, told journalists on Friday that he welcomed Russia’s veto because the US proposal would undermine Sahrawi self-determination.
Algeria expressed its regrets on Saturday over the failure to renew the mandate of MINURSO. His Foreign Ministry criticized what it called excessive bias of the US project in favor of Morocco.
Humanitarian group Oxfam warned that the loss of MINURSO’s “monitoring and de-escalation functions risks compromising security and stability.”
While most Sahrawis live in Moroccan-ruled Western Sahara, tens of thousands of them are estimated to live in Polisario-run refugee camps in Algeria. The American resolution, which the United States vetoed, called for a refugee census.
Low-intensity fighting has continued since the Polisario announced the resumption of armed struggle in 2020.
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