MOROCCO: Moroccan Select Foreign Affairs Committee condemns Spanish visit to Ceuta and Melilla

The Moroccan Foreign Affairs Select Committee said that the Spanish royal visit to Ceuta and Melilla will damage relations between the two countries. Morocco continued its opposition to the proposed plans by King Juan Carlos to visit Spain's two north African enclaves, which Morocco claims as its own. The Foreign Affairs Select Committee, meeting in Rabat, condemned the decision as damaging to relations between the two countries. "All the committee members expressed strongly their condemnation and their refusal to this visit and to some behaviours par the Spanish side that are contrary to the spirit of the friendship and partnership agreement between the two countries," Fouad Ali Al Himma, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee said. Spain said the king would make his first visit as head of state to the small, densely populated cities of Ceuta and Melilla on Morocco's Mediterranean coast on Monday (November 5)and Tuesday (November 6), accompanied by Queen Sofia. High-level Spanish trips to Ceuta and Melilla are rare and a visit by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in 2006, the first by a Spanish head of government since 1981, raised hackles in Morocco. After Spain's announcement, "it has been decided on the high instruction of his majesty King Mohammed VI ... the recall for consultation of Mr. Omar Azziman, his majesty's ambassador in Spain, for an indeterminate period," Moroccan state news agency MAP said. Spain's deputy prime minister, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, defended the royal visit, saying it was in response to requests by residents. She said Morocco and Spain were allies. "Spain is our neighbour and we have common interests but this interests should not be at the price of our national causes, mainly our territorial causes with Ceuta and Melillia on the top of these causes," Mohamed Reda Ben Khaldoun, an MP for the Justice and Development Party said at the the Foreign Affairs Select Committee meeting. A Spanish Foreign Ministry spokesman said Morocco had made a sovereign decision and the recall was for "information purposes". Spanish-Moroccan relations have improved since Zapatero came to power and aligned his foreign policy closer to that of staunch Moroccan ally France. A low point was reached in 2002 under his predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar, when Morocco sent troops to the tiny disputed island of Perejil and Spain sent special forces to oust them. Moroccan Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi voiced surprise and "profound regret" at the royal visit, which he first heard about in the Spanish media, MAP said. "The government ... recalls that these two towns are an integral part of the territory of the Kingdom of Morocco and their return to the mother nation will come from direct negotiations," MAP quoted El Fassi's office as saying. El Fassi became prime minister in September after his conservative Istiqlal (Independence) party won the most seats in parliamentary elections. The party has a nationalist agenda and staunchly defends Morocco's "territorial integrity" including its claim over Spain's former colony of Western Sahara and over the two enclaves, which Morocco calls Sebta and Mellilia. News of the trip has caused excitement in the two cities where roads are expected to close, shops will shut and government offices will open only for two hours. Children are unlikely to attend school so they can line the route of the Spanish monarch. Spain took Melilla at the end of the 15th century and took over Ceuta from Portugal in the 17th century. The enclaves now have a lucrative sideline in contraband consumer goods smuggled into Morocco, while high barbed-wire fences attempt to stop illegal migrants coming the other way. Ceuta and Melilla have been recognised as autonomous cities since 1995, a status that gives them less power over their own affairs than the autonomous regions of peninsular Spain. Here are five facts about the enclaves. * Ceuta stands on the Moroccan side of the Strait of Gibraltar. Its strategic position drew Phoenicians, Romans and Visigoths until it came under Arab control. Portugal occupied it in 1415 before ceding it to Spain in 1668. Population: 75,000. * Melilla, east along Morocco's coast from Ceuta, had a similar background before being conquered by the Duke of Medina Sidonia for the Spanish crown in 1497. It has a population of about 68,000. * Since 1995, both have been recognised under the Spanish constitution as Autonomous Cities. This gives them significantly less power over their own affairs than Autonomous Regions of peninsular Spain such as Catalonia or Andalusia. * Spain and Morocco have had several disagreements about the territories and a row blew up last year when Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero made a visit, the first by a serving head of government since 1981. * In 2005, hundreds of illegal migrants stormed border fences between Morocco and the two enclaves in desperate attempts to enter European territory. The fences were strengthened and more forces deployed.

ITN Source | November 3, 2007

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