King visit to Buenos Aires opens wide perspectives for bilateral ties

Morocco and Argentina are braced to open broad perspectives in their bilateral ties during the official visit that King Mohammed VI is paying to Argentina since Friday at the invitation of president Nestor Kirchner, said Moroccan ambassador in Buenos Aires, Mohamed Maalainine.

The promotion of bilateral ties will also reflect positively on relations between the Arab world and the Latin American country, he stressed in an interview with MAP, recalling, in this context the talks held between the two heads of state in New York in September 2003 in one of the first meetings held between the Argentinean president and a foreign leader after his inauguration in May.

Since then, bilateral relations have been increasingly enhanced both at the economic, trade, cultural, scientific and technological levels and in multilateral and international forums, he went, citing in this regard Buenos Aires's support to the United Nations efforts to reach a final solution to the Sahara issue and Morocco's backing to Argentine in the crisis with Britain over the Malwines.

The Sahara dispute is opposing Morocco to the Algeria-backed Polisario separatists that lay claim to Morocco's southern provinces, known as the Sahara. The former Spanish colony was retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid accords signed with Spain and Mauritania.

The diplomat further recalled how Morocco, in a solidarity gesture, intensified its trade cooperation with Argentina during the financial crisis it experiences in 2002-2003. The sovereign's trip to Argentina is the last leg of a Latin American tour, started on November 23, that took him successively to Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Chile.