Madar (Nouakchott) - The UN Security Council is preparing to vote on renewing the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), which expires on October 31, as Mauritania holds to a position it has kept for more than four decades: positive neutrality and support for a peaceful, consensual solution agreed by the parties under UN auspices.
The constants of Mauritania's position
Prime Minister Mokhtar Ould Djay reaffirmed in February, in an interview with Sky News Arabia, Mauritania's attachment to positive neutrality, saying it supports any solution the parties agree on and will keep helping them reach a consensual settlement.
Former government spokesman El Houssein Ould Meddou went further in June 2025, describing Mauritania's stance on France 24 as "active positive neutrality", through which Nouakchott pushes both sides toward greater engagement to reach a solution acceptable to them.
The position rests on a choice Mauritania made after the 1979 Algiers agreement, when it withdrew from the conflict and gave up any territorial claims in the territory - a choice that, according to many Mauritanian political readings, spared it the costs of war and made it a party accepted by all in the UN process.
The border proposal in context
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's report, transmitted to the Security Council on October 1, refers to a Mauritanian proposal to set up a commission to clarify "the definitive and permanent international borders of the disputed territory", presented by the foreign minister during the round of talks held in Madrid on February 8-9, 2026.
According to press readings of the report, the proposal is presented as a contribution to framing a consensual delimitation within any future settlement, not as a final position or an agreement between the parties. The Moroccan news site Le Desk notes that the report devotes only one sentence to it.
Mauritanian observers say the proposal's logic is consistent with neutrality itself: clarifying borders before any settlement secures whatever is agreed and spares the region future disputes. Mauritanian journalist Cheikh Ahmed Amin, a Maghreb specialist, has pointed to a "fundamental difference between delimiting borders as part of a final agreement and claiming sovereignty over part of the territory".
The Jeune Afrique account
Jeune Afrique published a historical analysis on October 18 asserting that Mauritania wants its sovereignty over the town of Lagouira, at the territory's southern tip, to be recognised - an account later picked up by Moroccan and Arab websites, some of which floated hypotheses of political trade-offs.
The account, however, does not rest on any official Mauritanian statement or document. The Secretary-General's report, according to those who have read it, does not mention Lagouira in connection with the Mauritanian proposal and gives no grounds to say Nouakchott has changed its historical position. The Mauritanian government had not commented publicly as of Tuesday morning.
The coming vote
The Security Council is expected to vote on renewing MINURSO before its mandate ends on October 31, after the Secretary-General recommended a one-year extension. Resolution 2797 of October 31, 2025, had extended the mission's mandate by one year.
