Spain PM to visit Rabat ‘very soon’: diplomatic source

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will visit Morocco “very soon” after the two nations ended a thorny year-long dispute, a diplomatic source told AFP on Thursday.

The invitation comes as the two countries moved to normalise ties after drawing a line under a bitter spat in mid-March when Madrid changed its position on Western Sahara, a disputed territory claimed by Rabat.

There was no date given for the top-level visit which was proposed to Sanchez during a phone call with Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, the source said.

“Mohammed VI invited the Spanish premier on an official visit which will take place very soon,” he said, indicating the invitation was also extended to Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares.

Albares had been due to meet his Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita in Rabat on Friday, but the trip was cancelled following the king’s invitation.

“For this reason, they decided that tomorrow’s planned visit involving both foreign ministers would be carried out in the framework of the upcoming visit by the prime minister,” he said.

On March 18, Spain said it had agreed to publicly recognise Rabat’s autonomy plan for disputed Western Sahara, ending a decades-long stance of neutrality.

In capitulating to a years-long Moroccan demand, Spain sought to end a dispute which erupted in April 2021 when it allowed Western Sahara’s independence leader Brahim Ghali to be treated for Covid-19 at a Spanish hospital.

Ghali’s Polisario Front has long fought for the independence of Western Sahara, a desert region bigger than Britain, that was a Spanish colony until 1975.

A month later, more than 10,000 migrants surged across the Moroccan border into Spain’s Ceuta enclave as local border forces looked the other way in what was widely seen as a punitive gesture by Rabat.

Despite multiple overtures by Madrid, Morocco remained unmoved — until this month’s U-turn.

Despite widespread criticism at home, Sanchez has defended the decision as crucial for securing a “more solid relationship” with Morocco, a key ally notably on migrant issues.