Balkhadem to arrive in Rabat today

Well-informed diplomatic sources said that the Algerian foreign minister Abdul Aziz Balkhadem will arrive today evening in Morocco coming from Mauritania.

The same sources added that the Moroccan King Muhammad VI will receive tomorrow the Algerian minister who will hand him an invitation to attend the Arab Maghreb states summit to be held on June 21 and 22.

Algeria's summit will be the first to be held since 1994 as the activities of the Arab Maghreb federation have been suspended because of the differences between al-Rabat and Algiers over settling the Western Sahara issue.

The foreign ministers of the Arab Maghreb federation met in January this year and decided to convene a summit for the Arab Maghreb federation in the first 6 months of 2002.