2024-08-06 11:27:03
German Blanco, who is also president of the constitutional commission in the Colombian Senate, had read in plenary session a new motion supported by 65 senators out of 105, who gave unequivocal support to the territorial integrity of Morocco and its sovereignty over its Sahara, reiterating the categorical rejection of the “legitimate representatives of the Colombian people” to “the ill-advised decision” of the current government in Colombia to establish relations with the pseudo-SADR.
In his speech, which was incisive and disapproving, the Colombian senator stated that through this motion, an overwhelming majority of Colombian senators believe that “relations with the Kingdom of Morocco, one of Colombia’s most important trading partners in Africa and the Arab world, are threatened,” deploring that these “very important relations of more than 50 years are being put at risk.”
“The members of Congress present here, who represent the Colombian people and who belong to different political parties, draw attention to this situation and express their discontent, because we have been asking for 6 months, in vain, for a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs” to address this issue, continued Senator German Blanco, recalling that the motion bears the signatures of senators from all political parties (majority, opposition and independents).
German Blanco points out that the 65 signatories of the motion represent “well over half” of the members of this legislative institution (two more than the signatories of the previous motion supported in October last year by 63 senators) who “reject the treatment that the national government has reserved for relations with the Kingdom of Morocco.”
“This time,” added German Blanco, “we are doing it again because we want the national government, led by President Gustavo Petro, to become aware of these dangerous relations and the doors it has opened with the Polisario, a group that is not recognized by the UN and that, on the contrary, is considered a separatist and terrorist group.”
“Not content with this, President Gustavo Petro decided to receive the credentials of a person representing this group as if it were a State under international law,” the Colombian senator protested, noting that “President Petro forgets that States are bound by the context of the United Nations and not by the will of the president in office.”
German Blanco finally criticizes the Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs for his refusal to receive the senators, despite their repeated requests to do so, inviting the head of diplomacy to maintain “appropriate relations with states around the world such as Morocco. Unfortunately, this is not the case,” he deplores.
“The Minister of Foreign Affairs (…) is not very interested in the diplomatic relations of the Colombian State, because he forgets that governments come and go and institutions remain and that he is going to leave us with a very serious problem that the next government will have to solve,” concludes Senator German Blanco.
In this new motion adopted in plenary on Tuesday, and which will be addressed to the head of state and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, the signatories affirm that they “categorically reject the establishment of ‘diplomatic relations’ with the separatist movement (polisario) and the self-proclaimed ‘Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic’ and even more, the presence in Colombia of its so-called ‘ambassador’.”
2024-08-06 11:27:03