The opening comes a few days before the Green March anniversary, reflecting the UAE’s support for Morocco’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over Western Sahara.
Rabat – Emirati Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan said the opening of the UAE’s consulate general in Morocco’s Laayoune will advance the strategic relations between the two countries.
Morocco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Bourita and UAE Ambassador to Morocco Al Asri Saeed Ahmed Aldhaheri chaired the ceremony to open the consulate in Laayoune today.
The opening “was the consecration of solid and strategic Moroccan-Emirati relations, which will experience a new boom,” the UAE minister said in a pre-recorded video speech broadcast during the inaugural ceremony.
He also expressed hope for the diplomatic representation’s “decisive role” in strengthening economic opportunities, expanding areas of understanding, and promoting channels of cooperation.
The Emirati FM described the bilateral ties between the two officials as solid and built on the basis of “sincere brotherhood, permanent solidarity, mutual respect, and constructive cooperation.”
The opening of the diplomatic representation in the region reflects the UAE’s support for Morocco’s territorial integrity.
The consulate’s inauguration is an important milestone as it makes the Gulf country the first non-African Arab state to open a diplomatic representation in Morocco’s southern provinces.
The UAE has now joined a lengthy list of African states to have opened consulates in Dakhla and Laayoune.
The Gulf country’s foreign affairs minister said that the UAE has “constantly” supported Morocco’s “just causes” in different regional and international fora.
“This support reflects the ties of fraternity and fruitful cooperation between the two brotehrly states,” the FM said.
Morocco’s foreign minister, Nasser Bouria, said that the Moroccan people appreciate the UAE’s historic decision to open the consulate.
He welcomed the fact that the UAE is the first non-African Arab country to open a consulate in a southern province.
“The consulate also constitutes, at the diplomatic level, a mechanism for the strengthening of bilateral cooperation and the development of commercial, economic, cultural and scientific exchanges,” Bourita said.
UAE Ambassador to Morocco Aldhaheri also commented on the importance of the consulate’s opening, recalling that the inauguration comes in conjunction with Morocco’s preparation to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Green March.
Morocco will celebrate the Green March on November 6, when King Mohammed VI will deliver a speech to the nation to reiterate Morocco’s principled position on and sovereignty over Western Sahara.
The UAE ambassador said that the diplomatic representation will open “broad prospects for the promotion of cooperation and development of bilateral relations, in accordance with the far-sighted directives of the leaders of the two countries.”
The UAE’s diplomatic representation in Laayoune is the ninth consulate general inaugurated in the southern province in less than a year.
Other countries that opened consulates in the region include Comoros, Gabon, the Central African Republic, Sao Tome and Principe, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, Eswatini, and Zambia.
