Benny Gantz in Morocco to consolidate bilateral defense cooperation
Renewed relations, following the agreement to resume relations last year, between Israel and Morocco through a certain bilateral cooperation between the two countries, should be even more formalized with the visit to the Kingdom on Wednesday during the came from the Israeli Defense Minister, Benny Gantz.
On his way to Rabat and during his official two-day trip, Benny Gantz will meet his counterpart Abdellatif Loudiyi as well as the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs for African Cooperation and Moroccans living abroad, Nasser Bourita. This is the first time that an Israeli Minister of Defense will be welcomed in Morocco and he is the second elected after Yaïr Lapid (mid-August), to visit the Kingdom.
During a press briefing, Lapid had expressed his "concern about the role played by Algeria in the region and its rapprochement with Iran, which had enraged Lamamra & Co, which was leading the campaign with full force. Moreover, against the admission of Israel as an observer member of the African Union, a return recorded in July with all due respect to Algiers was futile.
The Times of Israel daily edition reported that Benny Gantz is expected to take off from Israel at 7 p.m. local time and land in Rabat on Tuesday evening. During his trip he will hold a series of meetings with Moroccan officials, in addition to those with Abdellatif Loudiyi and Nasser Bourita will participate in a number of ceremonies around the Moroccan capital and visit a local Jewish community before returning to Israel Thursday night.
During his stay, Gantz will sign "a memorandum of understanding that will define defense cooperation between the two countries," his office said. For AFP, which gathered the information from a source close to the visit, this aims to "lay the foundations for any future security cooperation between Israel and Morocco", which confirmed that "until now , there was a certain level of cooperation. It really formalizes it. "
Since the resumption of relations and the Abrahamic agreements, the two countries have signed a panoply of memoranda of understanding relating to air transport and in particular civil aviation, tourism, culture, oil and gas drilling, research on water resources, agriculture, finances… All that was needed was Defense to complete the battery of these agreements which are in the process of being concretized. Israel and the Kingdom have also reopened their “respective liaison offices” which are really embassies.
This visit comes two days after that of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for African Cooperation and Moroccans living abroad, Nasser Bourita in Washington, where he had been received by his American counterpart, Anthony Blinken. During this meeting, among others, the Sahara and the deepening of relations between Morocco and Israel were discussed.
The trip of the Israeli Minister of Defense also comes as Algiers unilaterally severed diplomatic relations with Rabat and has since shown nervousness, indelicacy, even hostility towards the Kingdom with behavior far from that of a worthy neighbor who should suit him.
In short, this stay, which arises in a context of tensions between Algeria and Morocco, is not fortuitous according to specialists. For Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, specialist in Israeli-Moroccan relations at Tel Aviv University, the first visit of an Israeli defense minister to Morocco, in full tension between the two heavyweights of the Maghreb, does not seem to hold. pure coincidence.
In any case, it should allow the Kingdom to maintain its leadership status in this region of North Africa which has lost its stability by the hostile actions of the Kaki regime next door.
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