(ANSAmed) - RABAT, MAY 4 - Former Israeli president Shimon
Peres will not be going to Marrakesh despite an invitation from
the Clinton Foundation to speak at a conference on the Middle
East and Africa.
The decision was made after polemics following the
announcement that he was to have taken part tomorrow. Many
associations and a large section of pro-Palestinian civil
society spoke out against Moroccan allowing the former Israeli
political leader to enter the country. Hamas also urged Morocco
to withdraw the invitation.
The Tuesday event - under the foundation chaired by former US
president Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea - will thus not
go forward. The initiatives scheduled until May 7 include
speeches by area leaders and figures from the culture and
business worlds, both African and Middle Eastern. The aim is to
take stock of relations and potential for development.
Morocco and Israel have not had diplomatic relations since
2000, when the kingdom closed the Casablanca and Tangiers
offices.
Peres has already been to Morocco twice: in 1986, on an
official visit while prime minister and when Hassan II was king,
and in 1993, immediately after the signing of the Oslo Accords,
which he was one of the creators of and which earned him the
Nobel Peace Prize alongside Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak
Rabin.(ANSAmed).
