{"id":29620,"date":"2016-10-21T06:19:28","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T06:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/time-has-come-for-morocco-to-return-to-the-au\/"},"modified":"2016-10-24T02:23:12","modified_gmt":"2016-10-24T02:23:12","slug":"time-has-come-for-morocco-to-return-to-the-au","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/time-has-come-for-morocco-to-return-to-the-au\/","title":{"rendered":"Time has come for Morocco to return to the AU – Mushikiwabo"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister Louise Mushikiwabo believes \u201cthe time has come\u201d for Morocco to return to the African Union, which the kingdom left over thirty years ago to protest the admission of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) as a member.}<\/p>\n

The minister\u2019s statement came during King Mohammed VI\u2019s first full day in Kigali as part of a tour to Rwanda, Tanzania and Ethiopia.These three East African countries that have historically sided with the Algeria-backed SADR.<\/p>\n

\u201cMorocco has been absent since 1984\u2026For us, the time has come for Morocco to join its brothers and sisters again,\u201d Mushikiwabo said to reporters.<\/p>\n

The Moroccan monarch chaired the signing of 19 bilateral agreements with Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Wednesday regarding a variety of sectors: tourism, pharmaceuticals, banking and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Rwandan friends support us,\u201d Moroccan Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar said, reflecting on the economic nature of the new agreements.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the overwhelming majority of African countries which support and applaud the return of Morocco in its corporate family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morocco officially filed a request to re-enter the African Union in September. <\/p>\n

Morocco\u2019s move has been supported by 28 countries, which submitted a motion to the organization, and called for the freezing Polisario\u2019s membership in the AU.<\/p>\n

The king\u2019s current tour will defend his country\u2019s position to be reinstated in the pan-African organization and reinvigorate Rabat\u2019s diplomatic ties to East Africa \u2013 a region that has been dominated by Algeria, which backs the separatist Polisario Front.<\/p>\n

King Mohammed VI previously said Morocco\u2019s return to the AU \u2013 which requires approval through a vote within the union\u2019s commission \u2013 did not mean the country backtracked on its territorial claims in the Western Sahara.<\/p>\n

Analysts believe Morocco\u2019s return to the African Union will enable it to fight the Polisario and Algeria from within and thwart all their schemes to undermine Morocco\u2019s sovereignty over the Western Sahara.<\/p>\n

\"Rwandan<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister Louise Mushikiwabo believes \u201cthe time has come\u201d for Morocco to return to the African Union, which the kingdom left over thirty years ago to protest the admission of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) as a member.} The minister\u2019s statement came during King Mohammed VI\u2019s first full day in Kigali […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[2577],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-morocco-world-news"],"bylines":[{"id":2577,"name":"Morocco World News","slug":"morocco-world-news","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2577,"name":"Morocco World News","slug":"morocco-world-news","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29620"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29620"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}