Rabat – Morocco advocates reinforcing the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) to be well-positioned to face the serious threats to security in the region, Foreign Minister Saad Dine El Otmani said on Monday in Rabat.
“Today, our community is called upon to pave the way for the emergence of a strong and modern organization that is capable of finding appropriate solutions,” to the issues facing the region, said El Otmani at a meeting of the CEN-SAD executive council.
He pointed to the threats posed by the proliferation of criminal, drug trafficking and trans-border terrorist networks which undermine the region’s stability.
“The recent events which shook the region have exacerbated the risks of instability in the Sahel, notably in Mali where terrorist groups managed to take control of large areas,” said the Minister.
El Otmani deemed that the initiatives launched so far to combat terrorism and organised crime in the region remain inadequate.
In this regard, he called on CEN-SAD member countries to combine efforts with a view to ensuring regional stability, which, he said, remains a sine qua non of sustainable development.
The extraordinary session of CEN-SAD’s executive council opened on Monday following two preparatory days which focused on the means to reinvigorate the organisation’s role in the region.
Elaborating new strategic orientations and adopting concrete cooperation mechanism were also issues examined during the preparatory meetings, a source from Morocco’s foreign ministry said.
Established in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, in 1998, CEN-SAD has 28 member states in the Sahel and Sahara region. Chad currently assumes the organisation’s presidency.
CEN-SAD extraordinary session is held after major transformations that took place in North Africa with the downfall of the regimes of Ben Ali in Tunisia, and Gaddafi in Libya.
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