{"id":231657,"date":"2016-07-17T06:00:58","date_gmt":"2016-07-17T06:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=231657"},"modified":"2016-07-17T06:00:58","modified_gmt":"2016-07-17T06:00:58","slug":"morocco-seeks-to-rejoin-african-union-after-western-sahara-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=231657","title":{"rendered":"Morocco seeks to rejoin African Union after Western Sahara row"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Morocco has sent a special envoy to lobby African leaders to rejoin the African Union 32 years after it left in a row over Western Sahara.<\/p>\n<p>Taib Fassi Fihri met Kenya&#8217;s President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi and said Morocco wants to re-join the AU without any preconditions.<\/p>\n<p>Morocco claims Western Sahara as part of its territory, much of which it has occupied since 1975.<\/p>\n<p>But the AU recognises Western Sahara as an independent state.<\/p>\n<p>Morocco is the only African country not to be an AU member.<\/p>\n<p>The AU, however, says it will continue pushing for the rights of Western Sahara to hold a referendum on its self-determination.<\/p>\n<p>Brahim Ghali, the new leader of the North African territory is expected to attend the African Union summit in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, according to the AU&#8217;s deputy chairperson Erastus Mwencha.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Ghali was elected the Western Sahara president and secretary-general of the independence movement Polisario Front on 9 July.<\/p>\n<p>He replaced long-time leader Mohamed Abdelaziz who died in May.<\/p>\n<p>How did we get here?<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption body-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/12890\/production\/_90402957_morocco.png\" alt=\"Map of Morocco and Western Sahara\" width=\"464\" height=\"261\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">1975-76: Morocco annexes two-thirds of Western Sahara after colonial power Spain withdraws.<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">1975-76: Polisario Front declares the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), with a government-in-exile in Algeria. Thousands of Sahrawi refugees flee to western Algeria to set up camps.<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">1984: Morocco leaves the Organisation of African Unity (which later became the African Union) in protest at the SADR&#8217;s admission to the body.<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">1991: UN-monitored ceasefire begins in Western Sahara, but the territory&#8217;s status remains undecided and ceasefire violations are reported. The following decade sees much wrangling over a proposed referendum on the future of the territory but the deadlock is not broken.<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">March 2016: Morocco threatens to pull its soldiers out of UN global peacekeeping missions in Western Sahara, after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon uses the term &#8220;occupation&#8221; when referring to the territory.<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">May 2016: Long-time Polisario Front leader Mohamed Abdelaziz dies aged 68<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Morocco has sent a special envoy to lobby African leaders to rejoin the African Union 32 years after it left in a row over Western Sahara. Taib Fassi Fihri met Kenya&#8217;s President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi and said Morocco wants to re-join the AU without any preconditions. Morocco claims Western Sahara as part of its [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":231659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=231657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/231659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=231657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=231657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=231657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}