Tanzania Supports Morocco In Western Sahara Dispute

Tanzanian and Moroccan governments have come up with a joint statement revealing Tanzanian President John Magufuli has voiced support for Morocco’s position on the ongoing dispute over Western Sahara region.

The move is towards finding permanent and viable solution to the dispute that is persisting for decades.

The Tanzanian government has expressed too its support for implementing the UN resolutions in the region.

Last month Moroccan King Mohammed VI visited Tanzania and the two countries agreed on 22 cooperation agreements.

Meanwhile, it is also learned in his East Africa tour the same time the king officially asked to the African Union (AU) to return to the Pan-African organization.

Morocco was absent from the organization for past at least thirty years. It withdrew in 1984 to protest AU’s admission of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) that was declared unilaterally by the Polisario Front, a self-proclaimed national liberation movement, earlier.

The Front demanded an independent state in Western Sahara since 1970s along with an end to the Moroccan presence there.

Earlier this year in July the king directed a message to AU leaders at a summit held in Rwanda expressing willingness of Morocco to return to the union if the member states renounced the SADR’s membership in the union.

Morocco and the Polisario Front had signed a ceasefire deal in 1991.