Islamist parties try to revive Arab Maghreb Union

North African Islamist parties held a meeting yesterday in Algiers in the context of launching an initiative to revive the Arab Maghreb Union which they said is suffering from “clinical death” since its establishment in 1989.

Algeria’s largest Islamic party, the Movement of Society for Peace, hosted the meeting which was attended by Morocco’s Justice and Development Party, Libya’s Justice and Construction Party, Mauritania’s National Coalition Party for Reform and Development (Tawassul), Tunisia’s Ennahda Movement and a number of Algerian parities, including the ruling National Liberation Front.

President of the Movement of the Society for Islamic Peace, Abdul Razzaq Maqari, said the Maghreb Union is in a state of “clinical death” and has not achieved anything other than “establishing official institutions and 30 frozen agreements in various fields.” He attributed this problem to the failure of the leaders to meet since 1994.

Maqari added that the meeting’s goal is to “gradually activate it.”

“We are parties with similar ideologies who have met today, but the initiative is open to everyone in order to activate the project on a popular level,” he said.