Morocco Rejects Spain’s Migration Link in Diplomatic Crisis, Foreign Minister Says

"Morocco is not in the habit of engaging in polemics about the statements of senior officials of foreign countries. However, the comment today (May 31) by the President of the Spanish Government, rejecting the Moroccan declaration by linking it to migration, raises great surprise and calls for clarification," says the Moroccan Foreign Minister in a statement.

Nasser Bourita questions the Moroccan declaration to which the head of government refers and specifies that all the latest statements by Moroccan diplomatic officials, including the minister, the Moroccan ambassador to Madrid and the director general, do not mention the migration issue at all. He recalls that the May 31 statement from his department, "widely reported, moreover, by the Spanish media, only briefly addresses the migration issue, and precisely to recall the good cooperation". "It is therefore legitimate to wonder whether the President of the Spanish Government has actually read the various statements related to this crisis and in particular that of today," he continues.

"Moreover, it is not up to foreign officials to define which Moroccan minister should speak on which subjects," Nasser Bourita asserts, adding that in Morocco, the management of the crisis concerns several state institutions and departments, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which only carries, within the framework of its attributions, the national position, at the diplomatic and media levels.

"Morocco has repeatedly stressed that the bilateral crisis is not related to the migration issue. The genesis and the deep reasons for the crisis are now well known, particularly to Spanish public opinion. Mentioning migration must not be a pretext to divert attention from the real causes of the bilateral crisis," concludes the Moroccan Foreign Minister.