MOSCOW, December 12. /TASS/. Washington’s recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara could hamper UN efforts aimed at resolving the conflict and trigger a new spiral of violence in the region, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

"By this decision, the Donald Trump administration aims to undermine the universally recognized international legal groundwork of the Western Sahara settlement, which stipulates the determination of the final status of that area through a referendum. This new position of the United States could dramatically impede UN efforts to promote the Settlement Plan for Western Sahara and to exacerbate the relations between the directly involved parties and to provoke a new spiral of armed confrontation in the Sahara-Sahel region," the foreign ministry stressed.