Morocco King accuses Algeria of hindering borders opening
Moroccan King Mohammed VI critisized Algeria for the closed borders and Western Sahara issues, holding it responsible for lack of progress due to “stubbornness of the other party.”
In his Wednesday’s speech on the 14th anniversary of a traditional event, the Moroccan king said the so-called New Maghrebin System project failed. It was supposed to gather the five North African countries to build a common future through complementary and integration mechanisms.
Algeria accepted to open its closed borders with Morocco provided that it stops drug smuggling, its misleading campaign. Yet, Morocco did not respect those conditions and incited its barons to increase drug smuggling.
As for the Western Sahara issue, Mohamed VI said the UN Security Council’s decision which was issued in April “achieves more international sympathy with our first issue.”
Speaking about Algeria, the King said his country will work on continuing the dynamism it launched on local level to “face stubbornness of the other parties.”
The Sahrawi government called on the international community to push Morocco to respect legitimacy and its decisions.
The Sahrawi information ministry said Mohamed IV’s speech embodies stubbornness to its “illegal occupation of Western Sahara whatever the price is,” Sahrawi news agency reported.
“The speech did not show any political will to support the UN endeavors to reach a justice and permanent solution to this conflict,” said the ministry in a release.
“Morocco ignored international and regional human rights organizations which showed violations in occupied areas in Western Sahara.”