Morocco organized its first meeting this weekend with Mali, Burkina and Niger. The theme: the opening towards the Atlantic Ocean and therefore the opening up of these Sahelian countries. The foreign ministers of the four countries met in Marrakech. The key is an economic alliance, but also a geopolitical one.
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With our correspondent in Rabat, Victor Mauriat
“ To offer water is to offer life »: the words of the Malian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdoulaye Diop, expressed, in Marrakech, the gratitude of the Sahelian countries towards the Moroccan initiative.
Opening up the countries of the Sahel by allowing them access to the Atlantic Ocean, giving them access to the country’s infrastructure, opening the doors to international trade: the promise of the Shereef kingdom is beautiful, its partners say they are interested.
It is still necessary to concretely implement this initiative which remains, by the admission of the participating ministers, still at the project stage.
Because to allow the Sahelian countries to benefit from the advantages of Morocco’s opening to the Atlantic, numerous road and airport infrastructures are necessary.
If the Sahelian countries affirm that they want to invest to respond to the Moroccan proposal, the reflection is still only at its beginning, the four ministers have also agreed to create a task force in each interested country to prepare and propose “ the operational modalities of this initiative »…
In any case, if the economic project still needs to be clarified, the good diplomatic understanding is very real.
Final communiqué having sanctioned the work of the ministerial coordination meeting on the international initiative of His Majesty King Mohammed VI to promote access of the Sahel countries to the Atlantic Ocean.
🔗https://t.co/3yO7SYfmSb pic.twitter.com/aIujjS8f87— Maroc Diplomatie 🇲🇦 (@MarocDiplomatie) December 23, 2023
“An initiative which contains a political and geopolitical dimension »
Researcher Youssef Chiheb, professor at Sorbonne Paris Nord University, analyzes these emerging geostrategic links, through this initiative for access to the Atlantic, between Morocco and the Sahelian countries. “ It is an initiative which has a purely political and then geopolitical dimension. Firstly political, it is part of the long and tumultuous rivalry between Morocco and Algeria for leadership positions in Africa and particularly sub-Saharan Africa, Sahel and Sahara. Secondly, try to occupy as much as possible the geostrategic vacancy resulting from the hasty withdrawal of French forces from Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali. So, nature abhors a vacuum, Morocco had its own idea, namely to recover these countries », explains the researcher.
Morocco is, despite everything that happens and despite everything we hear, a faithful ally of France and the Americans, and under no circumstances will it let the Russians settle in Africa, knowing that they have nothing to offer Africa other than a new generation of plunder. And so, Morocco, I’m not going to say as far as being mandated, but Morocco had the blessing, the tacit green light from the Americans and the Europeans to push the center of gravity of their from Africa towards the pure Atlantic . Especially since it is in this part of the Atlantic where wealth is very important.
“Morocco, faithful ally of France and the Americans and, under no circumstances, will it let the Russians settle in Africa”
“The world today is moving towards the Pacific. Africa has no geopolitical chance of being present, and may still be forgotten by these major changes, so there remains the Atlantic. We’re going back to basics. The Atlantic interests Americans and Europeans little or more, so Morocco is taking the opportunity to present these 3 principles: namely the geopolitical isolation of Algeria; the coalition of maritime French-speaking African countries to move towards trade on the Atlantic; and then the deployment of new desalination plant technology to be able to provide Africa with its most vital need in the next 20 years, which will be long,” concludes Youssef Chiheb.
Read alsoAlliance of Sahel States: Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger intend to strengthen their relations