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By Zainab Calcuttawala
Rabat – The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is seeking to make Morocco a strategic partner, according to media reports.Petr Pavel, Czechian Chief of the NATO Military Committee, has recently travelled to Rabat in order to plan future collaboration between the Kingdom and the U.S.-backed military alliance.
“General Petr Pavel’s move to Rabat is the most striking manifestation of NATO’s willingness to make Morocco a strategic partner,” Al Massae reported on Thursday.
Morocco’s relationship with NATO has strengthened over the past couple of years since the country signed an Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme to identify points of future collaboration, particularly in the fields of cybersecurity, energy independence, and military defense initiatives, according to a statement by NATO.
Morocco is a major strategic partner for NATO and a driving force of the Mediterranean dialogue which has just celebrated its 20th anniversary,” said Oana Lungescu, NATO spokesperson during a press event last March. Vessels from one of NATO’s standing fleets docked into Casablanca for a scheduled visit later that month.
Morocco also participated in the latest iteration of a series of military exercises, called African Lion, with U.S. marines under the NATO framework last May outside the coastal city of Tifnit.
“Morocco is the perfect country for this,” said Dutch Major Frank Peters, executive officer for the Marine battalion participating in the exercises. “We learn from them, they learn from us, and that’s important that we do it during African Lion because we don’t get too many opportunities to train in this climate, surroundings and weather; in Holland, you can’t train like this“.
