MADRID, 25 April 2004 — Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero paid his first visit abroad yesterday to Morocco to put a symbolic stamp on a new era of relations, with stronger cooperation against terrorism.
His short visit came as 15 Moroccans were under arrest in Spain on suspicion of taking part in the commuter train bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid on March 11.
“We agreed to intensify relations... and the cooperation in the fight against international terrorism,” Zapatero, who received a red carpet welcome, told a news conference in Casablanca.
He did not announce any concrete agreement after talks with King Mohammed and Prime Minister Driss Jettou, which Spanish government sources said also covered illegal immigration from the North African country.
But Morocco’s interior minister will travel to Madrid “soon, before the summer”, one source said, adding the visit marked the start of “a new era”. King Mohammed spoke Spanish throughout their meeting, an unexpected move one source called “a big gesture.”
Both countries have suffered from the same kind of terrorism, the sources said, pointing to apparent ideological links between the Madrid bombings and suicide attacks by radical Islamists in Casablanca last May.
King Mohammed and Zapatero unveiled a marble stone memorial for the victims of the bombings. An inscription in four languages — Arabic, French, Italian and Spanish — on a plaque said: “In memory of the victims of May 16, 2003 in Casablanca”.
Zapatero believes the north African country deserves preferential treatment “Morocco demands and deserves... relations that are tailored to bring about very close ties. That is what I shall say to the Moroccan authorities during my visit,” he was quoted as saying in Madrid ahead of the trip.
In a message when Zapatero took office, Moroccan King Mohammed also stressed his resolve to consolidate historical links between the two countries “to the level of strategic partnership based on global security and common progress.”
Spain’s heads of government have traditionally paid their first official visits to Morocco, and Zapatero said the day after his Socialist Party won last month’s general election the country was a foreign policy priority. Spain and Morocco narrowly avoided a military clash in July 2002 over an uninhabited islet, just off Morocco’s Mediterranean coast. Heavy flows of illegal immigrants into Spain from North Africa have also been a long-standing source of discord.
Fishing rights off Morocco’s Atlantic coast have been another thorny issue and Zapatero saw “space to work together”. He also pledged Spanish support for the idea to give Morocco “advanced status in its relationship with the European Union.”
He called it a “framework we have to work toward, which is a higher stage than association (with the EU) which already exists”. The EU is Morocco’s main trading partner.
Newspaper editorials and politicians in Rabat saw in Zapatero’s visit a fresh start after eight years of bilateral tension under his predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar. Media commentators could not find enough words of praise for Zapatero’s “sincerity” and “openness”, which they contrasted with the “conceit, arrogance and contempt” showed by Aznar.
