disputes

The UN Security Council rejected the competing proposals, leaving the peacekeeping mission without an approved extension.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the disputed Western Sahara faces an uncertain future after competing United States and Russian resolutions failed at the UN Security Council.

Russia vetoed the US-backed proposal on Friday, despite support from 11 members of the 15-member council.

A rival Russian draft then failed to secure the nine votes needed for adoption.

The mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is due 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 Algeria-backed Polisario Front seeks to establish an independent state called the Sahrawi Republic.

The UN established MINURSO in 1991 to monitor a ceasefire and prepare a referendum on the territory’s future, but disagreements over who could vote have prevented it from taking place.

The US draft would have extended the mission for a year while removing “referendum” from its name and making Morocco’s autonomy proposal the only basis for further talks.

Under that plan, the territory would manage its internal affairs but remain under Moroccan sovereignty.

The council had already made the proposal a basis for negotiations last year.

US Ambassador Mike Waltz told the council in New York on Friday that the referendum had been stalled for decades.

Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said at the same meeting that Moscow opposed the draft because it favoured one side.

Russia instead proposed renewing the existing mission without those changes.

Morocco’s royal palace welcomed the failure to renew MINURSO, saying on Friday that UN personnel and equipment should leave the territory.

Sidi Omar, the Polisario Front’s representative at the UN, told reporters on Friday that he welcomed Russia’s veto because the US proposal would undermine Sahrawi self-determination.

Low-level fighting has continued since Polisario said it was resuming armed struggle in 2020.

The proposal comes days after Pyongyang says it moved new military units into ‘firing positions’ along the border.

South Korea has proposed holding military talks with North Korea in a bid to calm rising tensions over their heavily fortified border.

Seoul said on Friday that it had invited Pyongyang to discuss restoring communication channels. The offer was made as military activity on the border increases.

Talks with North Korea would aim to “mutually confirm” the precise location of the land Military Demarcation Line (MDL), “discuss ways to restore military communication lines and prevent accidental clashes in border areas”, Kim Hong-cheol, deputy minister for national defence policy, told reporters.

“Specific dates and locations could be discussed through Panmunjom,” Kim said, referring to the symbolic truce village on the North-South border where soldiers from both Koreas stand face to face.

He added that the South was open to three-way talks involving the United States-led United Nations Command and hoped for “a positive response from North Korea”.

It remains unclear whether North Korea would agree to talks. Leader Kim Jong Un has taken a hardline approach towards Seoul and suspended virtually all dialogue and cooperation with the South in recent years.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang has raised its military activity along the border and continues to do so.

On Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of the North Korean leader, announced that new military units have been moved into “firing positions” along the border.

Mines, barbed-wire fences, tactical roads, antitank walls and other fortifications have also been added to one of the world’s most heavily armed borders.

Tensions have worsened since last month when three South Korean soldiers were injured by explosions near the military demarcation line in the western section of the Demilitarized Zone, the buffer zone that runs between the Koreas, commonly known as the DMZ.

The South blamed the blast on landmines laid by the North and demanded an apology. Pyongyang has fiercely rejected the accusation.

Seoul’s Ministry of National Defence said on Friday that it was difficult to predict “what further incidents could occur if this situation is allowed to continue unaddressed”.

The ministry noted that a proposal for talks last year did not receive a response from Pyongyang.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has called for the North to return to dialogue. However, Kim Yo Jong responded by slamming the suggestion of bilateral talks as “the climax of the farce”.