Morocco has never considered to respond positively to the invitation to attend the “BRICS/Africa” meeting scheduled to be held in South Africa, or to take part in this meeting at any level whatsoever, an authorized source from the Foreign Ministry said.
In response to some media reports that have recently alluded to a hypothetical bid by the Kingdom to join the “BRICS” group, as well as its possible participation in the next “BRICS/Africa” meeting, scheduled for August 24 in Johannesburg, South Africa, the authorized source made it clear 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 at 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.
South Africa has always shown a primary hostility towards the Kingdom, and has systematically taken negative and dogmatic positions on the issue of the Moroccan Sahara, the source said, adding that “Pretoria has thus multiplied, both nationally and within the African Union, its notoriously malicious actions against Morocco’s higher interests.”
Besides, South African diplomacy is known for its lack of seriousness, its improvised and its unpredictable management when it comes to organizing this kind of events.
As an evidence of this lack of seriousness, the source mentions 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.
Regarding Morocco’s relationship with the BRICS Group, the 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.
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 King Mohammed VI.”
“Morocco remains committed to efficient, supportive and renewed multilateralism… Morocco 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,” the same source insisted.