Arab Maghreb federation discusses convening a summit
Diplomatic sources in Algeria said that the long-waited summit of the leaders of the Arab Maghreb federation is on the front list of the work agenda of the meeting of the foreign ministers of the federation's five member states meeting today in Algiers.
A diplomatic source said "very often the ministers discuss the issue of revitalizing the federation. The main issue is defining a date for the meeting of the leaders." However, the five leaders have not met since 1995 because of the intensified differences between Algeria and Morocco concerning the conflict over the Moroccan Sahara which the Polisario Front call for its independence from Morocco.
The Arab Maghreb summit which was due on June 22, 2002 in Algeria was cancelled after it was boycotted by the Moroccan King Muhammad VI. In addition to the two states the federation includes Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania.
Moroccan minister of foreign affairs and cooperation, Mohamed Benaissa, arrived in Algiers this Thursday to take part in the foreign ministers council of the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA), slated for today.
Benaissa told reporters he hopes the session will be a new opportunity for the UMA construction process and for the study of all (our) issues.
He also expressed hope that the meeting will enable the UMA to be up to the will of its peoples who long for an institution that has a stature and that genuinely reflects the value of the Maghreban union.
Meantime, the 20th session of the Arab Maghreb Union's ministers council, slated for Friday in Algiers, will look into "the essential issue of consolidating Maghreban integration," said Thursday Algerian minister in charge of Maghreban and African affairs, Abdelkader Messahel.
The official told the press everything becomes secondary compared to a larger integration in a world where there is no room for national strategies.
After he stressed that conditions are adequate for carrying on the Maghreban construction process, Messahel said national and international changes exact that the five member countries (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) think in terms of integration and consolidation of the Maghreban construction process, in keeping with the new priorities that differ from those that prevailed when the union was set up in the 80's.
For him, the union should be materialized and built on the basis of solid foundations if it is to become an important grouping in the region, in the Euro-Mediterranean space and at the international level.
The Algerian official further called for re-activating inter-maghreban cooperation, arguing that bilateral cooperation can serve sub-regional cooperation and urged for devising joint strategies in some precise fields regretting that trade among Maghreban countries hardly exceeds 10%.