Morocco launches first spy satellite, gets strategic boost

MARRAKECH: Morocco has launched its first observation satellite, to be used for military activities, surveillance of its borders and coastline and monitoring desertification in the region.
The Mohammed VI-A satellite was launched Wednesday from Kourou, French Guiana, in the presence of prominent Moroccan figures. It will be piloted from an operating center near the capital, Rabat.
The launch service provider Arianespace said that it will be used for mapping activities, spatial planning, monitoring of agricultural activities, prevention and management of natural disasters and monitoring of environmental developments.
The satellite was built by Airbus Defense & Space and Thales Alenia Space. A second launch is planned for 2018. The project’s cost has not been disclosed.
The launch has reportedly raised concern in rival neighbor Algeria, and in Spain.
Separately, Morocco ruled out on Tuesday any peace deal that allows for the independence of the Western Sahara as the UN renews efforts to resolve the decades-old dispute.
A UN peacekeeping force has been deployed in the former Spanish colony since 1991 with a mandate to organize a referendum on its independence or integration with Morocco.
Morocco agreed to the vote in a 1988 agreement with the pro-independence Polisario Front that ended 13 years of conflict but has since blocked it being held, saying it will accept only autonomy for the territory.
“No settlement of the Sahara affair is possible outside the framework of the full sovereignty of Morocco over its Sahara and the autonomy initiative, whose seriousness and credibility the international community has recognized,” Morocco’s King Mohammed VI said in a televised address.
His speech marked 42 years since hundreds of thousands of Moroccan civilians marched across the border to lay claim to the mineral-rich territory.
The “Green March” triggered war with the Algerian-backed Polisario Front which had been campaigning for independence for the territory since 1973.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution in April that called for a new push for talks between Morocco and the Polisario.