Moroccan FM: Morocco-‘Israel’ Ties Already Normal

By Staff, Agencies

Morocco's relations with the “Israeli” entity are unique in the Arab world and bilateral ties were “already normal” before a "normalization" deal was announced, Morocco's foreign minister told “Israeli” media Sunday.

Morocco on Thursday announced a "resumption of relations" with the “Israeli” entity, shortly after US President Donald Trump tweeted that Rabat and the entity had "agreed to full diplomatic relations".

Morocco closed its liaison office in Tel Aviv in 2000 at the start of the second Palestinian Intifada [uprising].

Morocco's announcement is widely seen as making it the fourth Arab country this year to unveil plans to normalize ties with the entity through a US brokered deal, following the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.

But in an interview with “Israel's” Yediot Ahronot newspaper on Sunday, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said: "‘Israel's’ relations with Morocco are special and can't be compared to the relations that ‘Israel’ has with any other Arab country."

"From our perspective, we aren't talking about normalization because relations were already normal," Bourita was quoted as saying by the paper.

"We're talking about [re-formalizing] the relations between the countries to the relations we had, because there have been relations the entire time. They never stopped," he added.

A palace statement last week said that King Mohammed VI had agreed to establish full diplomatic relations with the “Israeli” entity with "minimal delay."

That followed Trump's recognition of Morocco's contested sovereignty in Western Sahara, infuriating the Algerian-backed Polisario Front which controls about one-fifth of the vast, arid region.

Around 1,000 people rallied in support of the Moroccan position on Western Sahara in front of parliament in the North African nation's capital Rabat on Sunday.

Bourita, in the interview, highlighted Morocco's enduring connection to the “Israeli” entity through its domestic Jewish community and the estimated 700,000 “Israeli” Jews of Moroccan descent.

"Morocco has an important history with the Jewish community, a history that is special in the Arab world," he told the paper.