Casablanca – The Algerian Prime Minister, Abdelmalek Sellal, acknowledged that Morocco has won the necessary votes to secure its return to the African Union (AU).
The Algerian Prime Minister has admitted that Morocco’s return to the AU has become inevitable, as it has secured the necessary votes from the majority of African countries.
The senior official said in a press conference during preparations for the Africa-France summit in Bamako last weekend, “Morocco has ensured its integration into the African Union, even before its ordinary summit in Addis Ababa” scheduled to be held on January 27-28.
During the African Union summit held in Kigali, Rwanda, last July, King Mohammed VI expressed in a letter Morocco’s intention to return to the organization and called on its member to reconsider the membership of the self-proclaimed Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), a breakaway entity that claims to represent the Saharaiws and wishes to establish an independent state in the Western Sahara in southern Morocco.
The Moroccan monarch’s statement obtained the support of 28 countries, which submitted a motion to the organization and called on it to suspend the membership of the Polisario’s so-called SADR.
Signatories of the motion included, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Comoros, the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Libya, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sao-tome, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Togo and
Following King Mohammed VI’s letter to the AU summit, Morocco officially submitted its request to rejoin the African Union on September 23,
Morocco, which was among the founding members of the Organization of African Unity in 1963 (today’s African Union) withdrew from the organization in 1984 after its members approved the membership of the so-called SADR.
In recent years, Morocco led a massive campaign to strengthen its economic and diplomatic relations with West and East African countries.
