Kenyan Govt Clarifies Position on Sahrawi After Ruto's Tweet

The government said it has not abandoned a decades-old policy in which it supported the African Union's call for free self-determination of the Sahrawi people.

This comes after President William Ruto announced that the country had rescinded its recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

Sahrawi Republic has been seeking to transition from a semi-autonomous region to self-rule, a push that Morocco has vehemently objected to opposing proposals for Western Sahara to decide its future through a referendum.

The announcement attracted mixed reactions from foreign-policy analysts with a senior official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who declined to be named, saying it "came as a bit of a surprise."

State House later retracted part of a twitter thread on the matter only maintaining its commitment to the UN framework to resolve the conflict in an amicable manner.

Sahrawi Republic has been seeking to transition form a semi-autonomous region to self-rule, a push that Morocco has vehemently objected opposing proposals for Western Sahara to decide its future through a referendum.

Talks on the matter have not yielded much consensus in the past despite Morocco having committed to open dialogue following its readmission to the African Union (AU) in January 2017 after a 33-year absence to protest the recognition of Western Sahara.

The Western Sahara question has threatened to destabilize the Kenya-Morocco ties in the past, the most significant incident occurring when Western Sahara opened an embassy in Kenya in February 2014.

Kenya was also forced to issue a clarification in April 2021 after Ruto reportedly endorsed Sahrawi's bid during a private audience with El Mokhtar Ghambou, Morocco's Ambassador to Kenya, reports Capital FM.