MOROCCO SNUBS BRICS SUMMIT

…there has never been any question for Morocco to take part in ‘BRICS/Africa’ meeting at any level whatsoever ‘’ according statement disclosed by Maghreb Arab Press, the official Moroccan Agency of Press says

By NATION REPORTER 

THE Kingdom of Morocco will not join the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) group and will therefore not be attending the summit in South Africa, the Magreb Arab Press, the official Moroccan Agency of Press has said.

For the Kingdom of Morocco, there has never been any question of responding positively to the invitation to the “BRICS/Africa” meeting scheduled to take place in South Africa, or of taking part in this meeting at any level whatsoever, says an authorized source from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates.

In response to recent media reports referring to a hypothetical bid by the Kingdom to join the “BRICS” group, as well as its possible participation in the next “BRICS/Africa” meeting, scheduled for August 24 in Johannesburg, South Africa, the same source stresses that this was not a BRICS or African Union initiative, but an invitation from South Africa, in its national capacity.

“It’s a meeting organized on the basis of a unilateral initiative by the South African government”, says the same source, adding that Morocco has therefore assessed this invitation in the light of its strained bilateral relationship with this country.

According to the same source, South Africa has always shown a primary hostility towards the Kingdom, and has systematically taken negative and dogmatic positions on the question of the Moroccan Sahara.

“Pretoria has thus multiplied, both nationally and within the African Union, its notoriously malicious actions against Morocco’s higher interests,” according to the same source.

As proof, the source adds, the deliberate and provocative breaches of protocol that marked Morocco’s invitation to this meeting. Worse still, many countries and entities appear to have been invited arbitrarily by the host country, without any real basis or prior consultation with the other member countries of the BRICS Group.

“It had thus become clear that South Africa was going to hijack this event from its nature and purpose, to serve a hidden agenda”, says the same source, noting that Morocco consequently ruled out, from the outset, any favorable reaction to the South African invitation.

With regard to the Kingdom of Morocco’s relationship with the BRICS Group, the Ministry’s authorized source notes that, once again, South African diplomacy has arrogated to itself the right to talk about Morocco and its relationship with the BRICS, without prior consultation, deeming this to be “approximations” that in no way reflect reality.

For the same source, Morocco does indeed maintain substantial and promising bilateral relations with the other four members of the Group, and is even linked to three of them by Strategic Partnership Agreements. However, the Kingdom has never formally applied for membership of the BRICS group“There is as yet no framework or precise procedures governing the expansion of this grouping,” says the same source.

[/ihc-hide-content