Morocco is preparing to enter into an economic deal with many opponents of its territorial integrity, this time from within the “BRICS” group, as South Africa, one of the group’s member states, confirmed that Rabat had submitted an official request to join, at a time when Algeria had been seeking for months.
According to the South African Foreign Minister, Nadelidi Pandor, Morocco is one of the 23 countries that have requested to join the Economic Community, and the matter also concerns Arab countries, namely the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, and Palestine, along with Algeria.
Among the countries that also submitted a request to join Iran, Argentina, Belarus, Bangladesh, and Cuba, in addition to Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Honduras, Vietnam, Venezuela, and Thailand, and there are also countries from the African continent, and the matter is related to Nigeria, Senegal, and Ethiopia.
Currently, the group includes 5 countries, namely Russia, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, which means that the Kingdom is on the verge of an alliance with a group of countries that support the separatist proposition of the “Polisario” front in the desert, from within the group that was founded in 2009 and is described as including the fastest growing economies in the world.
South Africa, whose foreign minister announced the news, is among the main supporters of the “Polisario” in international forums, and the list of applicants to join includes the main host of the front, which is Algeria, along with many of its traditional supporters, especially Venezuela and Cuba, as well as countries that recognize it, such as Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Morocco is currently dealing with the logic of economic interests with many of these countries. In September 2021, the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance announced that the government had signed an agreement with the OCP group aimed at implementing a fertilizer project in the city of Dire Dawa with a total investment that could reach $3.7 billion.