On a possible Morocco-Algeria summit in the US
US Department of State spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that he does not have news on a Moroccan - Algerian reconciliation summit to be held in the United States.
McCormack was asked "There are some reports in Morocco that the United States is involved in a little bit of diplomatic work in trying to get Morocco's King together with the Algerian President. Do you have any insight into what's going on there? And apparently, this is -- there's a drive to get a summit on U.S. soil, bringing the two together. France and Spain, apparently, didn't have much success in pulling this off."
McCormack replied that "The return of the prisoners, which occurred as part of Senator Lugar's presidential mission, was a positive development and it removed a longstanding issue between the governments of Morocco and Algeria. And what we would hope is that the two governments can build on this positive development to resolve outstanding issues between the two of them. There are a number of different issues that go back a ways between the two countries. We will certainly continue to do our part to help the two of them come to the point where they can talk about these issues and even move forward on resolving them.
"As for the particular diplomatic activities of our Embassy, I don't have any updates for you in that regard. But we will do everything as appropriate and as needed and requested by the two parties to help them build on the positive development, the return of these prisoners."
McCormack did not deny that there are talks about a summit saying "If there are any further developments on that, anything happening here, we'll try to keep you updated on those."
