PM: Morocco rejects normalising ties with Israel

Prime Minister of Morocco Saadeddine Othmani makes a speech during monthly ordinary congress meeting in Rabat, Morocco on 15 May, 2018 [Jalal Morchidi/Anadolu Agency]

Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Dine El Otmani on Sunday rejected any normalisation of relations with Israel, Reuters reports.

“We refuse any normalisation with the Zionist entity because this emboldens it to go further in breaching the rights of the Palestinian people,” El Otmani told his Islamist PJD party.

The remarks came ahead of a visit to the region by Jared Kushner, a senior adviser and son-in-law to US President Donald Trump, and after the UAE and Israel struck a deal to normalise ties.

Morocco’s official position has been in support of the two-state solution, with East Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian state.

Morocco and Israel began low-level ties in 1993 after an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal was reached. But Rabat suspended relations with the Jewish state after the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising in 2000.

READ: The UAE’s perfidious normalisation plan with Israel

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