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ALGIERS – APS.dz .- Morocco has again shone a spotlight on empty chair politics by refusing to participate in the 8th Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD8) in reaction to the participation of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
Morocco’s seat remained empty on Saturday and Sunday at the TICAD8 events to protest against the reception by Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed of Saharawi President Brahim Ghali, who went to Tunis at the head of a large delegation to represent his country – a founding member of the African Union (AU) – at the event.
In a statement to APS, Mohand Berkouk, an expert on strategic and security matters, condemned Morocco’s policy of “dissidence”, illustrated by its attempt to “torpedo” the TICAD8 summit.
“Morocco’s decision to torpedo the Tunis summit on African development is indicative of Morocco’s true intentions with regard to its membership of the AU, whose real aim is to create dissension in Africa,” he said.
According to the expert, “Morocco is suffering from a double bankruptcy, both morally because of its policy of evasion on the question of Western Sahara and on a series of strategic questions for Africa”, such as granting observer status at the AU to the Zionist entity.
Underlining that the Kingdom is facing a “foreign policy crisis”, Berkouk pointed to Moroccan attempts to “create alliances to halt inter-African solidarity, both in terms of development and above all in terms of collective security”.
What must be retained from the TICAD summit, continues the Algerian expert, is “the confirmation of the status of Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory in relation to the status of the UN and SADR as a founding member of the AU”. A full member which can take advantage of opportunities to participate in all the multilateral interactions of the pan-African organisation, whether with other regional entities or even with higher geopolitical actors”.
“In Tunisia, Morocco suffered a double failure. The first is the participation of SADR in this TICAD meeting and the second is the very special welcome given to the President of Western Sahara Brahim Ghali,” he concluded.
For its part, the Saharawi Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirmed that the Moroccan occupying regime intends, through its practices, to implement subversive external agendas aimed at peace and stability in the region, indicating that it also seeks to undermine the cohesion and unity of the countries and peoples of the AU.
In this regard, Saharawi diplomacy recalled the hard truth that the reception of Mr Ghali by the Tunisian President was part of the “equal treatment of all heads of state and government and AU member delegations received at the international airport of Carthage”.
Speaking to the BBC Arabic television channel, the member of the Polisario Front’s National Secretariat in charge of Europe and the European Union, Oubi Bouchraya Bachir, agreed, considering that the content of the statement, full of arrogance and aggressiveness, made public by the Moroccan occupier’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the reception of the Saharawi president by his Tunisian counterpart concealed the feeling of resounding failure in achieving the objectives of its accession to the AU in 2017.
Also commenting on the latest Tunisian Foreign Affairs communiqué, the Saharawi diplomat stated that it “effectively reflects Tunisia’s commitment to international legality and legitimacy regarding the conflict of decolonisation of Western Sahara, as well as its commitments as a member country of the AU”.
Insisting on its “neutrality and respect for international law”, Tunisia had undertaken, in a statement from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to “respect the UN resolutions in the same way as those of the AU, of which it is a founding member”.
