Morocco, SA to resume diplomatic ties

SOUTH Africa and Morocco will resume diplomatic ties more than a decade after Morocco withdrew its ambassador from Pretoria, President Jacob Zuma said in a newspaper interview yesterday.

Morocco recalled its ambassador from South Africa in 2004 after former president Thabo Mbeki recognised a breakaway region in the Western Sahara which Morocco claims is part of its territory.

“Morocco is an African nation and we need to have relations with them,” Zuma told City Press in the interview.

“We never had problems with them anyway; they were the first to withdraw diplomatic relations.”

Zuma met Morocco’s King Mohammed VI last week on the sidelines of an AU-EU summit.

“They felt that even if we differ on the Western Sahara issues, the t wo countries should have a relationship,” Zuma said about Moroccan officials’ position at the meeting.

South Africa’s official government position – as reaffirmed by Zuma in one of his State of the Nation addresses – is to support “self-determination and decolonisation for the Western Sahara”.

The decision to re-establish ties with Morocco is likely to go down badly with some members of the ANC, however.

The ANC has long backed supporters of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), seeking independence in the Western Sahara. and has accused Morocco of occupying the region.

A spokesperson for South Africa’s Department of International Relations could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Morocco has controlled most of the Western Sahara, which is rich in phosphates and has seen some initial oil exploration efforts, since 1975. Both the SADR and Morocco are attending the AU-EU summit in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

A UN-brokered ceasefire in 1991 called for a referendum on selfdetermination for Western Sahara, but the vote has never taken place. – Reuters