The starting point: What Resolution 2797 has really changed
The sequence: Four cities, one logic
The unknown link: Oslo and Track II diplomacy
The October deadline: Why this date structures everything
The unknowns: Questions that remain open
Horizons Geopolitics Institute (IGH) assessment
What has been unfolding since autumn 2025 around the Moroccan Western Sahara file resembles a succession of discrete diplomatic meetings. This is no coincidence. It is an orchestrated mechanism.
The starting point: What Resolution 2797 has really changed
On 31 October 2025, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2797. For non-specialist observers, it was just another UN resolution on a fifty-year-old conflict. For the foreign ministries tracking the file, it was a turning point.
The difference lies in a single word. For years, the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco for the Moroccan Western Sahara was described in UN parlance as a “serious and credible” solution. Resolution 2797 qualified it as “the most realistic solution”. This seemingly discrete semantic shift has significant implications: it means the Security Council has prioritised the available options. The Moroccan plan is no longer merely one of several possible solutions; it is presented as the most viable one.
Two other elements warrant attention. Algeria, which until then backed the Polisario Front whilst positioning itself as a mere observer, was for the first time formally designated as a stakeholder in the process. Furthermore, the mandate of MINURSO —the UN mission present in the Moroccan Western Sahara since 1991— has been extended until 31 October 2026, creating a renewal window that structures the entire current diplomatic calendar.
Key takeaway: Washington no longer speaks about the existence of Resolution 2797, but about its application. This shift in language indicates that the text is being treated as an active roadmap, rather than a static observation.
MINURSO Headquarters in Laayoune – PHOTO/SOCIAL MEDIA
The sequence: Four cities, one logic
Since the adoption of Resolution 2797, a sequence of meetings has unfolded. Madrid, Washington, Oslo, Paris. At first glance, these appear to be ordinary diplomatic consultations surrounding a complex issue. Upon closer inspection, each step performs a specific function within a framework endowed with internal coherence.
Madrid: Stabilisation of the European anchorage
A first round of negotiations took place in February 2026 at the US Embassy. The four parties —Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario Front— gathered around the table on the basis of the Moroccan autonomy plan. The European anchorage of the process is thus stabilising.
Washington: The framework agreement momentum
A second round in February 2026 was led by Massad Boulos, Special Advisor to Donald Trump for Africa. The United States are no longer neutral facilitators; they are co-architects of the process, with a declared objective of reaching a framework agreement.
The Personal Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, and the Special Advisor for Africa to the US President, Massad Boulos – Photo networks
Oslo: The confidential mediation laboratory
A space of a radically different nature. This is not an official negotiation, but a confidential mediation forum, the Oslo Forum, where actors can explore options without formally committing their governments. It serves as the informal laboratory of the sequence.
Paris: Pre-UN harmonisation
The next step. By September 2026, following Madrid and Washington, a new round of discussions is expected to be held in the French capital, Paris, as revealed to IGH by diplomatic sources close to the matter. Its likely function: to consolidate and harmonise positions between the United States, France and European partners ahead of the UN deadline in October. This is not an isolated decision, but structural coherence.
The King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, and the French President, Emmanuel Macron, shake hands in Rabat, Morocco, on 28 October 2024 – PHOTO/ Moroccan News Agency Distributed via REUTERS
The unknown link: Oslo and Track II diplomacy
In everyday language, “Oslo” evokes the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Accords. In the current context, “Oslo” refers to something entirely different: the Oslo Forum, the world’s leading conflict mediation forum, co-hosted since 2003 by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva.
“Track II” diplomacy refers to exchanges between conflict actors that take place outside official frameworks, without communiqués, formal commitments, or public opinion pressure. It allows parties who cannot speak officially to test positions, explore compromises and circulate signals without anyone being forced to publicly defend what was said in the room. In frozen conflicts, this is often the only space where real margins for manoeuvre are identified.
The Oslo Forum currently gathers between 100 and 150 participants per edition: foreign ministers, UN special envoys, representatives of armed groups and professional mediators. It has addressed conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Colombia and Yemen. Therefore, its inclusion in the sequence surrounding the Moroccan Western Sahara is highly significant.
“The Oslo Forum does not produce an agreement. It produces something more valuable: a mapping of real positions, acceptable compromise zones and effective red lines.”
Its absolute confidentiality makes any precise assertion regarding its content impossible. What can be analysed: the presence of the file on the agenda, the profiles of the participants and the signals emerging in the weeks following each session.
The October deadline: Why this date structures everything
On 31 October 2026, the United Nations Security Council must rule on the renewal of the MINURSO mandate. This is not an administrative formality. It is the moment when the Council validates, or fails to validate, the level of political progress on the file, adjusts the operational framework of the mission and sends a signal regarding the direction in which it intends to push the process.
This is precisely why the ongoing diplomatic sequence holds such coherence. Each meeting —Madrid, Washington, Oslo, Paris— forms part of a back-planning process oriented towards this deadline. The goal is not necessarily to reach an agreement by October, but to produce, prior to that date, a sufficient level of political convergence so that the Security Council perceives a credible dynamic and acts accordingly.
What matters in October: Neither the final communiqué nor the statements. The exact terminology of the resolution renewing the MINURSO mandate will be the most objective indicator of the process’s actual progress.
The unknowns: Questions that remain open
This systemic reading does not imply that the outcome is predetermined. Several factors retain the capacity to alter the trajectory.
Will Algeria, now officially a stakeholder in the process, accept to play the role assigned to it by Resolution 2797, or will it continue to contest the framework from the outside?
Will the situation on the ground in the Moroccan Western Sahara remain stable enough not to reclassify the file as a priority security crisis at the expense of the political process?
Will the United States Congress, which is examining a bill to designate the Polisario Front as a foreign terrorist organisation, produce an outcome before October, and with what effect on current diplomacy?
Will the negotiations, of which three rounds have already been held with limited results according to several sources, find fresh momentum before Paris?
Horizons Geopolitics Institute (IGH) assessment
What the Madrid-Washington-Oslo-Paris sequence reveals is the way diplomacy actually operates behind the communiqués. It is not a linear negotiation between opposing parties, but a multi-level political synchronisation effort, where each space has a function and every signal counts.
Whether it leads to an institutional shift in October or not, this mechanism marks a definitive break with the logic of the status quo that characterised the Moroccan Western Sahara file for decades.