Morocco seeks Gulf investment for solar power in Western Sahara

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Morocco is likely to seek investment for new solar power plants from Arabian Gulf states, after tensions between the government and the regional independence movement the Polisario Front put European investment in the country’s disputed Western Sahara region at risk, according to Reuters.

The country’s solar energy agency announced plans for five plants in the Western Sahara in 2009, which it will seek to tender imminently.

The German development bank KFW, the European Investment Bank and the European Union, have all expressed reluctance to invest in the politically contested region, however.

“If we support those investments, it would look like we are supporting the Moroccan position. We are neutral regarding that conflict,” one source, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

In 1975, when the region’s Spanish colonists withdrew, the Western Sahara was annexed by Morocco and Mauritania. The Polisario Front had been campaigning for independence while the territory was under Spanish rule.

Both sides claim the territory. Armed conflict between the government and the Front ended after a UN-brokered ceasefire in 1991. As part of the deal, the UN established an organisation tasked with holding a referendum in the territory. This has not yet taken place, and is opposed by the Moroccan government.



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