Speaker of Moroccan House of Representatives in Tunis

Speaker of the Moroccan House of Representatives (lower house of the Moroccan parliament), Abdelouahed Radi, who started on Wednesday a visit to Tunisia, conferred with several Tunisian officials and MPs on means to enhance cooperation and coordination between the two countries in various areas.

Radi was also received by Tunisian President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, with whom he discussed the role of legislative institutions in upgrading bilateral relations and reactivating the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA).

The UMA, set up in Marrakesh in 1989 and mustering Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, is paralyzed due to strained relations between Morocco and Algeria over Algiers' direct involvement in the Sahara issue and due to Libya's criticism of the attitude adopted by the other UMA members in the Lockerbie crisis opposing Tripoli to western countries.

The reactivation of the Maghreban union had been brought up in all of Radi's talks with Tunisian officials, given the important role a dynamic union can play in taking up the regional and international challenges thrown at the Maghreban countries.

Radi repeatedly underlined in his talks with Tunisian officials that the edification of the Arab Maghreb requires political resolve and sacrifices.

At a news conference he held on Friday, Radi equally spoke of the UMA and of the need to reactivate all its bodies, calling in this respect for a meeting of the presidency council, as this meeting, he said, is likely to entail the reactivation of the whole union.

In the news conference, Radi also spoke of the Sahara issue and of Morocco's attachment to the U.N settlement plan that provides for the holding of a referendum in the Sahara provinces that were formerly under Spanish.

These provinces were retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid accords, but an Algeria-Backed separatist movement is claiming their independence.

After his visit to Tunisia, Radi will make a similar trip to Libya.