Rabat- Mohcine Jazouli, Morocco’s Delegate Minister for African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates, has renewed Morocco’s commitment to global security and stability, insisting on the country’s national integrity.
Jazouli’s comments came as he represented Morocco at the 18th Inter-ministerial Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, which kicked off yesterday in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Founded in the heat of the East-West tensions during the Cold War, the Non-Aligned movement sought to preserve the independence and autonomy of newly independent African and Asian countries, promising neutrality amid tensions, especially in terms of policy orientations.
Decades after the end of the Cold War, the group, now counting 125 member states and 25 observer states, still continues to hold on to those neutrality and independence principles.
According to Jazouli, Morocco’s Non-Aligned membership, as well as its participation in the movement’s summit, dovetails with its usual commitment to preserving shared interests and standing together when facing common challenges.
“This summit is a new opportunity to underline the relevance of the principles of Non Alignment and the importance of a collective introspection work so that these principles are adapted to a multipolar world and to the multidimensional challenges that require innovative approaches in order to provide collective responses,” argued Jazouli.
This year’s summit is themed after the iconic Bandung Conference in 1955, where 29 newly independent African and Asian countries met to lay the ground for what has now become South-South cooperation.
The Bandung Conference that later paved the way for the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961, pledged to promote economic, political, and cultural cooperation among “Third World” countries, in a bid to establish a new and reliable alternative to the dominant bi-polar vision of the time.
As one of the foremost pioneers of South-South cooperation today, Morocco is more committed than ever to a multipolar world in which countries are free to cooperate or choose the alternative that best fits their ambitions or goals, stressed the Moroccan official.
For Jazouli, while many things have changed considerably since the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement, there remains the same urgency and need for working out credible and effective alternatives to face the challenges of today’s geopolitical complexities, ranging from security, migration, to economic growth, among many others.
The Baku summit, he elaborated, is an “opportunity” for nonaligned countries to “exchange their views and approaches on issues of common interest and to reaffirm their commitment to the 10 principles of Bandung, including respect for territorial integrity and national sovereignty.”
