Egyptian MPs voice backing to Morocco's territorial integrity

A visiting delegation from the Egyptian Shoura Council voiced backing to Morocco's territorial integrity.

The Egyptian delegation, led by the Shoura Council's speaker Mustapha Kamal Hilmi, expressed Egypt's backing to Morocco's efforts to perfect its territorial integrity with the recovery of Sebta and Melilia (two northern cities still under Spanish control) and the Sahara.

Egyptian minister in charge of parliamentary affairs, Kamal Al-Shazli, said the confirmative referendum in the Moroccan Sahara can be held only with the strict respect of the Houston accords.

The Houston accords set specific criteria for the identification of would-be voters in the self-determination referendum that the U.N. plans to hold in the Sahara in December 1999.

The vote is designed to determine whether the Sahara --a former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid accords-- sets up on its own, as claimed by the Polisario, or be incorporated into Morocco.

The Egyptian MP delegation agreed with Moroccan peers from the chamber of advisors (upper house) to set up a friendship and cooperation group to establish a permanent dialogue between the Moroccan and Egyptian legislative institutions.