Morocco assures that it has not applied to join BRICS
Morocco responds to rumours concerning its possible candidacy to join the BRICS group and its participation in the upcoming meeting of the bloc in South Africa. According to a source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "the Kingdom has never considered responding positively to the invitation to the BRICS-Africa meeting in Johannesburg, nor participating in this meeting at any level". Furthermore, according to the source, the invitation to the meeting is not related to the BRICS, but is an invitation from South Africa in its national capacity.
Pour le Royaume du Maroc, il n'a jamais été question de répondre positivement à l'invitation à la réunion "BRICS/Afrique" prévue en Afrique du Sud ou de participer à cette réunion à quelque niveau que ce soit.
— Maroc Diplomatie 🇲🇦 (@MarocDiplomatie) August 19, 2023
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The Ministry official further recalls that South Africa has always shown hostility towards the Kingdom and has systematically adopted negative positions on the Moroccan Sahara issue. "Pretoria has thus multiplied, at the national level and within the African Union, notoriously malicious acts against the higher interests of Morocco," he explains, according to Le360.
The source also notes that South African diplomacy is characterised by its "improvised and unpredictable" handling of such events, highlighting the breaches of protocol that revealed Morocco's invitation to this meeting. "Worse still, many countries and entities seem to have been invited arbitrarily by the host country, without any real basis or prior consultation with the other member countries of the BRICS grouping," notes the Moroccan media based on the statements of the Ministry's source.
"It had become clear that South Africa was going to divert this event from its nature and purpose, to serve an unacknowledged agenda," the same source says, noting that Morocco dismissed from the outset any favourable reaction to the African invitation.
Regarding the Kingdom's relationship with the BRICS group, the Ministry source stresses that Rabat maintains important and promising bilateral relations with the other four members of the group - Brazil, Russia, India and China - and is even linked to three of them by strategic partnership agreements. However, Morocco has never formally applied for BRICS membership.
"Moreover, there is still no specific framework or procedures governing the expansion of this grouping," the source stresses. It also stresses that the development of relations between the country and the BRICS "will be part of the general framework and strategic orientations of the Kingdom's foreign policy, as defined by His Majesty King Mohammed VI".
"Morocco remains attached to an efficient, united and renewed multilateralism," notes the same source, affirming that the Kingdom considers that multilateral platforms should not be used to foment division or interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states.
