Some of the 404 POWs who were freed had been held for 20 years in the camps of the Polisario Front after they were captured in fighting with the Moroccan army.
The Polisario Front's guerrilla war began after Morocco invaded the Western Sahara and annexed the vast mineral-rich territory when Spain ended its colonisation of the region in 1975.
The Polisario Front's representative in Spain, Brahim Gali, told IPS that in order to reach a real solution to the dispute in the Western Sahara and ensure compliance with the U.N. resolution that recognises the Saharawi people's right to self-determination, the U.N., the EU and the United States must assume the responsibility of pressuring Morocco to negotiate.
"This was a unilateral decision we made and a sign of goodwill towards achieving a just and definitive solution that would put an end to the invasion that took place 30 years ago," said Gali.
What is important now, he added, is to put into effect the U.N. peace plan, to achieve the freedom of the 150 Polisario Front prisoners still held by Morocco, and to get that North African country to account for around 500 Saharawis who "disappeared" after being detained by the Moroccan security forces.
Shortly before his death in 1975, Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco (1939-1975) complied with a U.N. resolution and ordered the withdrawal of Spanish troops from what was until then known as the Spanish Sahara.
The region was divided between Morocco and Mauritania. But in 1979, Mauritania renounced all claims to the territory, and Morocco proclaimed sovereignty over the entire area. That triggered a row with Algeria, which threw its support behind the independence struggle waged by the Polisario Front, created in 1973.
Morocco finished building a 2,500-km wall in the late 1980s, occupying most of the disputed territory. The Polisario Front, meanwhile, maintained control over a small area east of the wall, bordering Algeria and Mauritania, where it set up the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic.
The ceremony for the release of the Moroccan POWs, which took place Thursday in the Algerian city of Tindouf, was overseen by U.S. Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
An agreement was signed by the Polisario Front and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) before the prisoners were handed over to Lugar and taken on two U.S. aircraft to Agadir, Morocco, to be reunited with their families.
Most of the POWs released Thursday had been held in camps in Tifirati, Miyek and Aguenit, in an area of the Western Sahara near the Algerian border.
Gali underlined that this was not the first time prisoners were repatriated by the Polisario Front, which began to free them in 1989. The latest release took place in 2003, after several countries, including Spain, acted as mediators.
But neither the POW releases nor the ceasefire agreed in 1991 - and still in force - persuaded Morocco to sit down at the negotiating table, he complained.