Casablanca – Amid diplomatic tensions with Tunisia, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita reaffirmed on September 6 in Cairo that Morocco’s position on Tunisia’s “serious and unacceptable” reception of the leader of the separatist Polisario Front Brahim Ghali “remains unchanged.”
This position “is the one expressed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans living abroad in its communique of August 26, 2022, and shared by all the Moroccan people and all its forces,” Bourita stressed.
Morocco’s top diplomat made the comments in response to a press release issued by the Secretary General of the League of Arab States, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who had stated that the diplomatic spat between Rabat and Tunis would be “settled” during a press conference following the closure of the 158th session of the Council of the League.
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Late last month, Morocco boycotted the 8th Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD) that was held last month in Tunis, in protest of Tunisia’s “hostile act” of hosting Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front, the separatist group claiming independence in southern Morocco.
Rabat has maintained that not only was the Tunisian president’s hosting of the Polisario chief a “stab in the back” of Morocco’s territorial integrity, but it also showed Tunisia’s abrupt abandonment of its decades-old neutrality on the Western Sahara dispute.
Amid growing diplomatic tensions between Rabat and Tunis, many in Tunisia have condemned their president for personally welcoming and hosting the leader of the separatist Polisario Front.
In particular, some critics have slammed President Saied’s decision to terminate Tunisia’s long-standing “constructive neutrality” on the Western Sahara conflict, describing it as “dangerously unprecedented” and “politically stupid.”
