RABAT: Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sanchez visited Morocco on Thursday to reset his country’s “strategic partnership” with Morocco despite severe criticism from within his own left-wing government for caving in to Moroccan pressure.
Both the sides agreed to show mutual respect, particularly with regards to matters of sovereignty, at the talks. “We are going to avoid anything that may offend the other, especially with regard to our respective spheres of sovereignty,” Sanchez said after he along with a dozen ministers met Aziz Akhannouch, the Moroccan Prime Minister.
It was the first such high-level meeting in eight years. “Today we are consolidating a new stage in relations between Morocco and Spain,” Sanchez said, insisting that there was “enormous unexplored potential” between the two nations. “Moroccan-Spanish relations have never reached this level of cooperation and coordination,” added Akhannouch.
The visit comes less than a year after the Spanish leader drew a line under a diplomatic crisis stretched over a year, by reversing decades of neutrality on the Western Sahara issue to back Morocco on the subject. But the concession to Morocco drew harsh criticism from across the Spanish political arena.
Sanchez’s number 3 in the government, Yolanda Diaz, the Labour Minister declined to join the visit as per her party’s rejection of Sanchez’s U-turn on the Western Sahara.
Sanchez has defended the decision as essential for Spanish interests, calling for new investments in Morocco on Thursday, where his country is already the third-biggest foreign investor. — APP/AFP
