Morocco and Algeria agree on package of consular and social-related recommendations

The Moroccan-Algerian committee for consular and social affairs, that met in Rabat June 21-22, has agreed on a package of recommendations related to social and consular issues between the two countries.

The joint committee was set up following a meeting of the two north African countries' foreign ministers in June 2003 in Algiers.

Officials from foreign ministries have adopted several recommendations related to the situation of their respective expatriate communities in the two states, the need to improve the legal framework regulating consular, judiciary and social aspects of Morocco-Algeria relations, says a communique of the Moroccan ministry of foreign affairs and cooperation.

Morocco and Algeria, two member-countries, together with Libya, Mauritanian and Tunisia, of the North African regional grouping "Arab Maghreb Union" (UMA), are at loggerheads over Algeria's direct backing to the "Polisario" secessionists which seek to separate Morocco's southern provinces from the rest of Morocco. The latter retrieved these provinces, known as the Sahara, from Spanish occupation under the Madrid accords signed in 1975 with Spain and Mauritania.