Maghreb Union: a strategic option, maghreban consultative council says
The consultative council of the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA), which wound up Wednesday its 14th session in Rabat, said the North African union is a "strategic option" to materialize regional integration aspirations.
The edification of a unified Maghreb is a "historic responsibility, (assumed) by everyone, and requires more efforts at different levels to make up for the delay in the unification process," the council said in a release.
The consultative council condemned the criminal acts perpetrated against the Palestinians, women, children and elderly, inhuman acts which disregard the international treaties and human rights. "The Arab and Moslem Umma (Nation) are living hard moments" because of the barbarous aggressions of the Israeli army against the unarmed Palestinian people, its territories, institutions and Islamic and Christian holy shrines, as wall as the unfair siege imposed on the legitimate Palestinian national authority, and its President Yasser Arafat," the council said.
The council renewed absolute solidarity and total support to the Palestinian people's struggle to recover their rights and establish their independent state, with Al Qods Asharif as capital.
The only way to a just and global peace in the Middle East goes through an immediate Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied Arab territories, including the Golan heights and the farms of Shabaa (south Lebanon).
It also called the parliaments of the Maghreb Union Countries to show all forms of financial and political solidarity with the Palestinian people, and exhorted the international and regional parliamentary organizations to make use of all the means available to ensure an international protection to the Palestinian people and its administration, and press Israel to abide by relevant United Nations' resolutions.
The consultative council condemned the arrest of member of the Palestinian legislative council, Marwane Barghouti, as a violation of international conventions, and called the world's parliamentary unions to intervene for his protection and immediate release.
