Politics

Israeli FM in Morocco: Today we choose the way of peace

Rabat, Aug 11 (EFE).- Israel and Morocco chose “the way of peace” when they decided to restore bilateral diplomatic ties, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said here Wednesday.

During a joint press conference in Rabat with Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita, Lapid expressed satisfaction with the path the two countries took in December to renew relations after a 20-year-long rupture.

On the first day of a visit to Morocco that marks a milestone in the normalization process, Israel’s top diplomat signed a trio of cooperation agreements in the diplomatic, aeronautical and cultural fields.

“Today, we are not being good politicians, we are being good parents,” Lapid said, noting that around 700,000 Israelis with Moroccan roots are now able to travel to the North African nation thanks to newly authorized direct flights.

Bourita, meanwhile, called for “rebuilding trust” between the Palestinians and Israelis and resuming negotiations, stressing Morocco’s position supporting the two-state solution.

Relations with Israel have changed because the Hebrew component “is in the Moroccan identity,” Bourita said, pointing to two millennia of Jewish history in the country.

The restoration of ties was due to the “strong will and conviction” of King Mohamed VI, the Moroccan foreign minister said.

Morocco’s Jewish community numbered some 300,000 people in the 1940s, before the creation of the State of Israel, and around 5,000 Jews continue to live in the country. EFE

mt-fzb/ta/dr

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