Argentina voices backing to Morocco's stands

Speaker of the Argentine Senate, Carlos F. Ruckauf, voiced his country's support to Morocco's stands and renewed the backing of the Argentine diplomacy to Moroccan interests.

"President Carlos Menen backs Morocco's stands," the senate speaker said here on Wednesday at an exchange of toasts at a dinner banquet hosted in his honor by speaker of the Chamber of Advisors, Mohamed Jalal Essaid.

Carlos F. Ruckauf, who is equally vice-president of Argentina, arrived in Morocco on Tuesday with a message from President Carlos Menem to King Hassan II.

Ruckauf also hailed the good relations that has always existed between Morocco and Argentina and recalled that some 4 million people of Moroccan descent are living in Argentina.

He called for upgrading bilateral cooperation through the promotion of investment opportunities and the exchange of visits between the two countries' businessmen.

Echoing him, Jalal Essaid stressed the need to increase trade exchanges between the two countries and to establish partnership relations in matters of investment and privatization.

The speaker of the Moroccan upper house lauded Argentina's official stand which backs the U.N settlement plan for the Sahara providing for the holding a referendum that will, he said, confirm the Moroccan identity of the kingdom's southern provinces.

Ruckauf and Essaid earlier signed the documents setting up two Moroccan-Argentinean parliamentary friendship groups as well as a "Rabat declaration" that sketches the broad lines of cooperation between the two parliaments.

The Argentine senate speaker also held a meeting with the Moroccan prime minister, Abderrahmane Youssoufi, during which the two sides stressed the need to coordinate stands at international fora.