Moroccan initiative on Sahara 'important basis for discussions
Morocco's initiative to grant substantial autonomy to its Southern Provinces (the Sahara) "can be an important basis for discussions to forge ahead with this issue that has lasted too long," said, here Tuesday, visiting Congolese minister in charge of Cooperation, Humanitarian Action and Solidarity, Charles Zacharie Bowao.
On April 11 Morocco submitted a proposal to the UN Security Council that suggests launching negotiations between the parties to the Sahara issue, which broke out in 1976 because of claims from the Polisario to separate the Sahara from the rest of the north-west African kingdom.
The Sahara had been ceded a year before by Spain under the Madrid Accord. On April 30, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling on the parties to enter into direct negotiations to solve the problem.
"There is a perfect convergence of views over both our bilateral concerns and all the issues that call out today to the different African states,” he told the press following a meeting with Moroccan Foreign Minister, Mohammed Benaissa, on the sidelines of the first session of the Moroccan-Congolese joint cooperation commission (May 8-9).
Touching on bilateral relations, the Congolese official noted that "bilateral cooperation abodes well with regard to the two countries real assets."
Following this meeting, the Moroccan minister expressed, at the opening ceremony of the first Moroccan-Congolese joint cooperation commission, the Kingdom’s recognition of Congo’s "positive stance that supports the justness and legitimacy of Morocco’s national cause."
This position "backs the international community’s efforts to find a political, negotiated, consensual and final solution to this issue," he went on to say.
Co-chaired by the Moroccan and Cogolese officials, this meeting aims, inter alia, to identify opportunities for the reinforcement and diversification of joint cooperation between the two countries.
Morocco and DR Congo agreed during the official visit paid by King Mohammed VI to Kinshasa in February 2006 to set up a bilateral cooperation joint commission to enhance their relations in several fields.
