Niger has always opposed recognition of puppet Sahrawi Republic

Niger has always opposed recognition of the puppet "Sahrawi Republic," proclaimed by the Polisario separatist movement, Niger's foreign minister, Aichatou Mindaoudou, told the BBC Thursday.

When the question was posed at the moment of the withdrawal of Spain (former colonial power), Niger was one of the countries that refused to recognize Western Sahara as an entity that could be qualified as a "State," she said.

In 1982, at the time of the debate on admission of the 'Republic' within the Organization of African Unity, Niger was one of those that refused for constitutive elements for a State were not gathered. Today, Niger has not changed this position, the head of Nigerian diplomacy said.

The Sahara issue is opposing Morocco to he Algeria-backed separatists who claim separation of the kingdom's southern provinces, retrieved from Spain in 1975 under the Madrid accord.

King Mohammed VI of Morocco is currently on an official and friendship visit to Niger, part of a 5-nation African tour that already led him to

Benin, Cameroon and Gabon. He will later fly to Senegal.