Hassan Bachar
For the Kingdom of Morocco, there has never been any intention to positively respond to the invitation to the “BRICS/Africa” Outreach meeting scheduled to take place in South Africa, or of taking part in this meeting at any level whatsoever, says an authorized source from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates.
In response to recent media reports referring to a hypothetical bid by the Kingdom to join the “BRICS” group, as well as its possible participation in the next “BRICS/Africa” Outreach meeting, scheduled for August 24 in Johannesburg, South Africa, the same source stresses that this was not a BRICS or African Union initiative, but an invitation from South Africa, in its national capacity.
“It’s a meeting organized on the basis of a unilateral initiative by the South African government“, says the same source, adding that Morocco has therefore assessed this invitation in the light of its strained bilateral relationship with this country.
According to the same source, South Africa has always shown a primary hostility towards the Kingdom, and has systematically taken negative and dogmatic positions on the question of the Moroccan Sahara.
“Pretoria has thus multiplied, both nationally and within the African Union, its notoriously malicious actions against Morocco’s higher interests,” according to the same source.
It stresses that South African diplomacy is known for its light, improvised and unpredictable management when it comes to organizing this kind of event.
As proof, the source adds, the deliberate and provocative breaches of protocol that marked Morocco’s invitation to this meeting. Worse still, many countries and entities appear to have been invited arbitrarily by the host country, without any real basis or prior consultation with the other member countries of the BRICS Group.
“It had thus become clear that South Africa was going to hijack this event from its nature and purpose, to serve a hidden agenda“, says the same source, noting that Morocco consequently ruled out, from the outset, any favorable reaction to the South African invitation.
With regard to the Kingdom of Morocco’s relationship with the BRICS Group, the Ministry’s authorized source notes that, once again, South African diplomacy has arrogated to itself the right to talk about Morocco and its relationship with the BRICS, without prior consultation, deeming this to be “approximations” that in no way reflect reality.
For the same source, Morocco does indeed maintain substantial and promising bilateral relations with the other four members of the Group, and is even linked to three of them by Strategic Partnership Agreements. However, the Kingdom has never formally applied for membership of the « BRICS » group.
“There is as yet no framework or precise procedures governing the expansion of this grouping,” says the same source.
The authorized source adds that the future of Morocco’s relations with the grouping as such, whether in their nature or in their scope, “will fall within the general framework and strategic orientations of the Kingdom’s foreign policy, as defined by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may God Assist Him.”
“Morocco remains committed to efficient, supportive and renewed multilateralism,” the same source emphasizes, saying that the Kingdom considers that multilateral platforms should not be used to encourage division or interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign States, nor should they create precedents that could, one day or another, turn against their initiators.