Foreign Ministry assures Feijóo that the Moroccan ambassador was summoned “officially and formally”

Eduardo González The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed this Friday that the Moroccan ambassador, Karima Benyaich, was summoned “officially and formally” on August 21 to express its rejection of statements made by several Moroccan ministers regarding the sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla. In his appearance before the full Congress to explain the migration crisis that Ceuta has been experiencing since July 30, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez stated this Thursday that the government had summoned the Moroccan ambassador on August 21 to “categorically” reject the statements made by the Moroccan Ministers of Justice, Abdellatif Ouahbi, and of Islamic Affairs, Ahmed Toufiq, in which they asserted sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla. Similarly, Morocco's Minister of Public Works and Water, Nizar Baraka, asserted this Thursday that "Spain is an essential partner," but Rabat will not back "one inch" from its "national territory." Following Sánchez's remarks, the newspaper La Razón reported that the ambassador was not in Spain that day and that the meeting did not take place. Regarding this, the leader of the People's Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, declared this Friday that the "only new element" in Sánchez's appearance was the summons of the Moroccan ambassador, but "it was all a lie" because it was carried out "clandestinely" and "she only met with the chargé d'affaires of the embassy." "I don't know if the lie is worse or that they try to sell us a supposed diplomatic success when Morocco once again questioned the Spanishness of a centuries-old Spanish city," he declared at the opening of the PP's political year in Alhaurín el Grande (Málaga) alongside the president of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno. In response to this controversy, sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated this Friday, "in relation to Mr. Feijóo's statements," that "the Moroccan ambassador to Spain was officially and formally summoned on August 21 to categorically reject the statements made about Ceuta and Melilla" and to "convey that these statements degrade our bilateral relationship." Furthermore, “this position has been conveyed to the Moroccan authorities at all levels through all diplomatic channels, formally and officially, including, of course, the official summons of the Moroccan ambassador to Spain,” the same sources added, recalling, in this regard, the words of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, “in his appearance before the Foreign Affairs Committee in Congress.” Sources at the Moroccan Embassy have confirmed to various media outlets that the ambassador was not in Spain on those dates. This Thursday, sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs clarified that, indeed, the Ministry had summoned the Moroccan ambassador in Madrid for August 21, but “since she was not in Spain, and in accordance with the Vienna Convention, the Chargé d'Affaires, who was at that time the highest authority of the embassy, attended the meeting at the Ministry headquarters representing the ambassador, without this altering in any way either the act itself or the diplomatic value of the summons.” “To derive anything else is wrong and does not conform to either the law or the diplomatic customs that govern relations between States,” they warned.

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