Tunisian president calls Moroccan and Tunisian parliaments to consolidate relations

Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has called on the Moroccan and Tunisian parliaments to consolidate relations between the two countries through the setting up of "brotherhood groups."

In a speech he delivered on Tuesday noon before the Moroccan parliament in Rabat, President Ben Ali who paid a state visit to Morocco March 15-16, called the two states' law-makers to "support the two governments' efforts" and to "strengthen and enrich the channels of communication through the setting up of brotherhood groups" that will contribute to reinforcing the bonds between the two peoples.

President Ben Ali also called for enhancing cooperation between the components of the civil society and for consolidating relations between the political parties and professional unions as well as between commercial, educational, sporting and cultural associations in order, he said, to consolidate further "the bonds of proximity and brotherhood between our two brotherly peoples."

In his address, the Tunisian head of state voiced satisfaction over the "excellent" political relations existing between Morocco and Tunisia and over the "positive development" of bilateral cooperation in the economic, social, cultural and artistic realms.

He said he was granting keen interest to the efforts being made by the various institutions and structures and by economic operators to raise bilateral cooperation to the level of the "excellent political relations."

In a welcome address, the speaker of the Moroccan house of representatives, Abdelouahed Radi, expressed the Moroccan parliamentarians' joy to welcome "a great friend of Morocco" and "the leader of the brotherly people of Tunisia."

He recalled that President Ben Ali is the first Arab and African leader to address the Moroccan parliament.

This was Ben Ali's first official visit to Morocco since coming to power in 1987. His previous visits to the kingdom took place in 1989 when he attended in Marrakesh the Maghreban summit that set up the Arab Maghreb Union in February and an extraordinary Arab summit that was held in Casablanca in May.