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Rabat – The Egyptian media tuned into King Mohammed VI’s ongoing visit to Ethiopia, identifying the ordeal as an effort to gain further political access to the African Union (AU) as Morocco furthers its bid to become an official part of the AU once again.
Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, is also the capital of the AU. The Egyptian sources also said Ethiopia had welcomed the Moroccan monarch in order to forward its developmental agenda.
Relations between Egypt and Morocco have been stressed in recent weeks as President Abdelfattah El Sissi allowed a delegation from the Polisario Front to enter Sharm El-Sheikh in an official capacity at the end of October.
The delegation reportedly met with presidents of Arab and African parliaments and members of the Egyptian legislature during its stay.
Soon after news of the incident went viral, the Egyptian government released a clarifying statement that insisted it had not invited the Polisario to visit the North African country.
“The Egyptian parliament did not extend any formal invitation to the Polisario Front to attend the commemoration of the parliament’s 150-year anniversary,” said Osama Heikal, the Egyptian legislative representative for media, culture and antiquities.
Egypt had acted as a host country for the visit between the Front’s leaders and the Arab-African parliamentary congress, though the country itself had not extended the invitation to the group.
Morocco withdrew from the African Union in 1984 (then the Organization of African Unity), when its members accepted the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) as an official member.
