RABAT - Morocco's King Mohammed VI has called on his country's partners to "clarify" their position over the disputed Western Sahara territory and offer "unequivocal" support.

"I would like to send a clear message to the world: the Sahara issue is the prism through which Morocco views its international environment," he said in a televised speech Saturday evening.

He also described the issue as the "clear and simple measure for the sincerity of friendships" between Morocco and its partners, in remarks marking the Revolution of the King and the People, a national holiday that celebrates the kingdom's anti-colonial struggle.

Rabat controls most of Western Sahara, which it views as its own territory.

Morocco fought a 15-year war with the Algerian-backed Polisario Front independence movement after Spain withdrew from its former colony in 1975.

A United Nations-monitored ceasefire deal provided for a referendum that proved to be impossible to hold and the process was stopped by the UN.
Since then Morocco proposed the option of a wider autonomy in April 2007 but Algeria and the Polisario have rejected it and proposed a referendum that the UN deemed unworkable.