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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has met Moroccan King Mohammed VI recently (yesterday) during a two-day visit to Rabat. The visit was designed to ease diplomatic tensions on Morocco’s disputed region of Western Sahara
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has met Moroccan King Mohammed VI recently (yesterday) during a two-day visit to Rabat. The visit was designed to ease diplomatic tensions in Morocco’s disputed region of Western Sahara.
Spain’s government called the meeting an opportunity to open a new chapter in ties with Morocco-based on “mutual respect and to discuss restraint from any unilateral action to honour the importance of all that we share and to avoid future crises.”
Relations between the two countries separated by the Strait of Gibraltar were severely strained last April by Spain allowing the leader of the pro-independence movement for Western Sahara to receive medical treatment for COVID-19 at a Spanish hospital. This arrangement was made at the request of Morocco’s neighbor Algeria, which is supporting the pro-independence Sahrawis.
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Morocco responded by relaxing its border controls around Spain’s North Africa enclave of Ceuta. This led to the unauthorized crossing of thousands of young Moroccans and migrants from other African countries.
Last month, Sánchez took the surprising decision to alter Spain’s long-standing position on Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony. In a letter to King Mohammed, Sánchez backed Morocco’s plan to give more autonomy to Western Sahara. This has caused a chain of diplomatic relations. The Spanish leader termed Rabat’s proposal as the most serious, realistic, and credible. The disputed land is largely barren but rich in phosphates. Also, it provides fishing grounds in the Atlantic Ocean — which Morocco annexed in 1976.
Morocco has grown in strategic importance to Spain since the help of the North African country was critical in its fight against jihadi groups and in preventing migrants who try to reach Europe by crossing the strait.
