Guinea Bissau backs moroccan identity of sahara

President of Guinea Bissau, Koumba Yala, has expressed backing to Morocco's stand regarding the Sahara and renewed backing to Moroccans friends, saying he will never forget the assistance Morocco extended his country in its liberation struggle.

We cannot ignore those who helped us in our uprising, President Yala was quoted by the Portuguese news agency LUSA as saying.

The head of state who was meeting Tuesday a batch of Guinea Bissau students on the eve of their departure to Morocco for their university studies said his country was backing its Moroccan friends and cannot forget that it was the late king Hassan II who had given the PAIGC its first weapons for the liberation struggle.

He recalled that the late Amilcar Cabral, founder of the PAIGC (African party for the Liberation of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde), had from the start visited Morocco to get assistance for his country's fight for independence.