Morocco recalls ambassador in Spain for consultation
Posted by African Press International on November 3, 2007
Rabat (Morocco) The Moroccan ambassador to Spain was recalled for consultations on Friday on the decision of King Mohammed VI, the Moroccan Foreign ministry has announced.
According to the ministry, the decision follows the announcement of the official visit by King Juan Carlos of Spain to the Spanish-held cities of Ceuta and Mellila which the Moroccan kingdom is claiming.
Describing this visit “as regrettable”, the Moroccan government on Thursday rejected and disapproved of it which the Spanish King is planning to make on Monday and Tuesday to Ceuta et Mellila at the northern border of Morocco.
Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi said he was “surprised” by this visit to the “despoilt cities’, the first one since the Spanish King came to office in 1975.
El Fassi strongly expressed his “deep regret and rejection of this initiative which may influence the existing privileged relations between the two brotherly countries and hopes that such measures be dropped”.
The Moroccan government stressed that these two cities “are part and parcel of the Moroccan territory and will return to the motherland through direct negotiations with neighbouring Spain”.
Morocco is continuously claiming its sovereignty over these two cities colonised by Spain in 1497.
Earlier in 1987, Rabat had offered to set up a consultation committee to find a solution to this “old decolonisation file” , diplomatic sources said in the Moroccan capital.
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