France welcomes Morocco's availability to settle Sahara Issue Paris, Dec. 12 - French Premier, Dominique de Villepin welcomed, here Monday, Morocco's commitment to settle the Sahara conflict, which erupted between Morocco and the Algeria-based Polisario separatists.
Morocco is due to offer large autonomy, under its sovereignty, to the Sahara in order to solve this thirty-year-old dispute. The draft proposal has so far won the support of several countries.
"In this respect I hail Morocco's reaffirmed availability to negotiate for a political solution and to reach a solution to the Sahara conflict," he said at a dinner offered in honor of the Moroccan Premier, Driss Jettou and the delegation participating in the 8th high-level French-Moroccan meeting.
For his part, Jettou reiterated Morocco's attachment to the unity of the Maghreb Arab Union -UMA- and its will to spare the Maghreb region as well as the Sahel any balkanization or instability threat that can result from the implantation of a fake entity.
Morocco committed itself to ward off these threats, through a widened autonomy status which would enable inhabitants of the Moroccan Sahara to manage their own issues, within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty and territorial integrity, he said.
On UMA, de Villepin reiterated "France’s wish to see the establishment of a stable and prosperous Arab Maghreb Union;” a regional grouping that musters Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.
As far as economical partnership is concerned de Villepin called for a “balanced partnership” between the two Mediterranean shores, noting that this is supposed to set progress in motion to erect a regional body in the southern Mediterranean shore.”
"As you know, France is your most passionate advocate in the EU. We back your +advanced status+ demand and we wish to broaden mutual cooperation in terms of security and defense," stressed De Villepin.
Highlighting the necessity to “give a new impetus to bilateral strategic partnership,” Jettou stressed that the Kingdom “is changing, modernized and opened on its international and regional environment, noting that Morocco’s choice to be close to Europe is a foreign policy choice and a strategic option, which is not only founded on geographical proximity but on real shared values and interests.
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