Morocco, Senegal create parliamentary friendship groups

Speaker of the Moroccan House of Representatives (parliament lower chamber), Abdelouahed Radi, announced Thursday the creation of two Moroccan-Senegalese parliamentary friendship groups to develop bilateral cooperation.

The Moroccan speaker, who led a Moroccan delegation to the 3rd conference of the Parliamentary Union of Islamic countries that was held in Dakar March 9 through 10, voiced the kingdom's determination to further enhance relations with Senegal in the parliamentary area.

"The two groups will soon start their work. We will be receiving Senegalese parliamentarians and vice-versa," Radi said.

The speaker and President Abdullaye Wade of Senegal, lauded in a meeting on Tuesday, the excellent ties binding the two African countries and underlined the need of further enhancing them.

The agenda of the conference of the Parliamentary Union of Islamic countries included a number of political, economic and cultural issues. At the political level, the issues of Al-Quds (Jerusalem), Palestine, the occupied Arab territories and the situation in Iraq, with special emphasis on the need to restore the Iraqi people political and economic sovereignty, the issues of combating terrorism under the UN umbrella and the reassertion of people's right to combat occupation, aggression and occupation with all available means.

At the economic level, discussions have covered the impact of globalization on the economies of developing countries particularly the Islamic countries.

The session also probed boosting dialogue between civilizations with a special focus on facing western campaigns against Islam.