The Security Council agreed late Wednesday to urge Morocco and the Polisario independence movement to continue UN-brokered talks for a "mutually acceptable" self-determination solution in the disputed Western Sahara.
After six hours of contentious talks, the 15-member body unanimously passed a resolution endorsing a recommendation in UN chief Ban Ki-moon's report that "realism and a spirit of compromise by the parties are essential to maintain the momentum of the process of negotiations."
Morocco has offered broad autonomy to Western Sahara, a mainly desert territory it annexed after the withdrawal of former colonial ruler Spain and neighbor Mauritania in the 1970s.
But the Polisario Front is seeking a referendum with the option of full independence.
South Africa, Costa Rica and Panama voted in favor of the text in the interest of consensus.
But they registered strong reservations about the sponsors' refusal to accept amendments that would have inserted a reference to the need to respect human rights, and would have avoided giving the impression that the council favors Morocco's proposal over that of the Polisario.
Resolution 1813 calls on the parties "to continue negotiations under the auspices of the secretary general without pre-conditions and in good faith...with a view to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable solution, which will provide self-determination of the people of Western Sahara."
Morocco and the Polisario independence movement have so far held four round of fruitless negotiations under the auspices of UN special envoy Peter van Walsum.
Polisario's UN representative M'hamed Kheddad said the significance of Wednesday's resolution was that it "totally rejected" a recent assessment by van Walsum that the option of independence advocated by the Polisario was "unrealistic."
But US deputy ambassador to the UN Alejandro Wolff disagreed.
"We do agree with van Walsum's assessment that an independent Sahrawi state is not a realistic option for resolving the conflict and that genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only feasible solution," he said.
"The Western Sahara conflict has gone on too long, provoking tension, causing human suffering and preventing progress toward regional integration in North Africa," he added.
He expressed hope that Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario would continue their negotiations in a "sustained, intensive and creative manner."
He said to encourage the parties, Washington planned to broaden its engagement with them over the coming weeks and months.
France, another strong backer of Morocco, also called on the parties to "show realism and a spirit of compromise to permit the negotiations to move in a more intensive and substantive phase."
"The persistence of the status quo is an obstacle to building an integrated, prosperous Maghreb and threatens the stability of the entire region," said French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert.
"The Council has made a mistake," South Africa's UN Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, the council president for April, responded.
He said the sponsors of the text "sent a wrong message to Morocco" by implying that Rabat's autonomy proposal had more merit than the Polisario's call for a referendum with the option of independence.
He also decried the fact that Western powers were prompt to raise the issue of human rights when dealing with Zimbabwe, Myanmar or Sudan but refused to do so in the case of the Western Sahara.
"This double standard created a clear impression that this council does not care about the human rights of the people of Western Sahara," Kumalo said.
Morocco's UN envoy El Mostafa Sahel welcomed the resolution as vindication of his country's position, noting that the text "paid tribute to Morocco's serious efforts to move forward toward a settlement."
The resolution also extended the mandate of the 483-strong UN mission for the referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), which expires Wednesday, for another year.
After 16 years of war, a ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario was declared in 1991. But Rabat repeatedly pushed back a promised self-determination referendum and since 2002 has insisted such a plebiscite is not necessary.
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