Kazakhstan voices support to Morocco’s territorial integrity, autonomy plan for Sahara

Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murat Nurtleu, expressed his country’s support for Morocco’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and for the autonomy plan for the Sahara presented in 2007.

In a Joint Statement, signed by Nurtleu and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, following talks in Rabat on Friday, Kazakhstan expressed its support for “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Morocco and welcomed in this regard the Autonomy Plan presented by Morocco as serious and credible basis to reach, through negotiations, a political solution to the Sahara issue.”

Kazakhstan’s unequivocal support for the Autonomy Plan, within the framework of the Kingdom’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, is of particular significance, given the country’s importance and leading role in the Central Asian region. This significant support reinforces Morocco’s major achievements regarding its national cause.

Kazakhstan thus joins the massive international support for the Autonomy Plan as the one and only solution to the regional dispute surrounding the Kingdom’s Southern Provinces.

In the same Joint Statement, the Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, currently on an official visit to the Kingdom, underlined that the Republic of Kazakhstan “highly appreciates the efforts undertaken by the United Nations Secretary General and his Personal Envoy for the Sahara in accordance with the parameters defined in the relevant Security Council resolutions on the Sahara issue.”

Kazakhstan thus affirmed its support for the exclusively UN political process on the issue of the Sahara, conducted in accordance with the resolutions of the Security Council.

The latest UN Security Council resolution on the Sahara, adopted on 31/10/2024, reaffirmed the seriousness and credibility of the Autonomy Initiative, confirmed the parameters of the political, realistic, pragmatic, lasting and compromise solution to the artificial dispute over the Sahara, and promoted the round-table setting as the sole framework for conducting the UN political process.

Morocco and Kazakhstan also announced that the visa exemption agreement for holders of ordinary passports will come into effect, on March 19, 2025.

This agreement was signed by the two ministers on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 26, 2024.

The coming into effect of this agreement reflects the spirit of friendship and the excellent relations between the two countries, in line with the guidelines of the two Heads of State, King Mohammed VI and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

This agreement aims to promote tourism cooperation and strengthen interpersonal and intercultural ties between the two countries, while also boosting trade exchanges.