Washington – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Moroccan Foreign Minister Saad Dine El Otmani are scheduled to launch, Thursday in Washington, the first session of Morocco-US Strategic Dialogue, the US Department of State said.
The dialogue comes following an exchange of high-level visits between U.S. and Moroccan officials, including trips to Morocco by Secretary Clinton, during which she reiterated Washington’s support for the reform process initiated in Morocco and for the Moroccan autonomy plan for the Sahara.
After his last visit to Washington in July, Moroccan minister delegate for foreign affairs, Youssef Amrani, stressed that his interlocutors had shown “a willingness to go beyond the current framework towards exploring with Morocco new opportunities within the framework of what exists and what we need to create in terms of innovative instruments of this bilateral relationship.”
The bilateral special partnership gave rise in particular to a free trade agreement, which entered into force in 2006. It is the unique such agreement signed by the United States with an African country. The Kingdom was also designated as a major ally of the United States outside NATO.
