Morocco seeks to rejoin African Union(AU) after Western Sahara row

Morocco has sent a special envoy to lobby African leaders to rejoin the African Union 32 years after it left in a row over Western Sahara.

Taib Fassi Fihri met Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi and said Morocco wants to re-join the AU without any preconditions.

Morocco claims Western Sahara as part of its territory, much of which it has occupied since 1975.
But the AU recognises Western Sahara as an independent state.

• 1975-76: Morocco annexes two-thirds of Western Sahara after colonial power Spain withdraws.
• 1975-76: Polisario Front declares the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), with a government-in-exile in Algeria. Thousands of Sahrawi refugees flee to western Algeria to set up camps.
• 1984: Morocco leaves the Organisation of African Unity (which later became the African Union) in protest at the SADR's admission to the body.
• 1991: UN-monitored ceasefire begins in Western Sahara, but the territory's status remains undecided and ceasefire violations are reported. The following decade sees much wrangling over a proposed referendum on the future of the territory but the deadlock is not broken.
• March 2016: Morocco threatens to pull its soldiers out of UN global peacekeeping missions in Western Sahara, after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon uses the term "occupation" when referring to the territory.
• May 2016: Long-time Polisario Front leader Mohamed Abdelaziz dies aged 68

Morocco is the only African country not to be an AU member.

The AU, however, says it will continue pushing for the rights of Western Sahara to hold a referendum on its self-determination


About African Union(AU)

 The African Union (AU) is a Continental Union consisting of 54 Countries in Africa

The AU was established on May 26,2001 in Addis Ababa  and launched on July 09,2002 in South Africa  with the aim of replacing the Organization of African Unity(OAU)

The only African  state that is a United Nations(UN)Member but is not a member of the African Union is Morocco, who opted to leave due to the African Union's recognition of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic(Western Sahara) as a member state.

Member States