Inaugural UK-Morocco Strategic Dialogue held in London
Today (Thursday 5 July), Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Minister of State for the Middle East Alistair Burt hosted the first UK-Morocco Strategic Dialogue.
Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
The Dialogue aims to deepen and strengthen our cooperation with Morocco across politics, economics, security and culture.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said:
I was delighted to host Moroccan Foreign Minister Bourita and Secretary of State Boucetta today for the first ever UK-Morocco Strategic Dialogue, here in London.
The UK and Morocco have an illustrious 800-year old history of exchanges and friendship, so establishing this annual forum, alternating between the UK and Morocco, is a welcome and natural step. With many areas of interest, we agreed to focus our discussion on four themes: Political-Diplomatic, Security, Economic and Cultural.
We exchanged letters on how the Dialogue might work over the years to come and discussed how a working group could maintain contact and momentum.
We also discussed transport and tourist security, regional politics, trade and investment.
I was particularly pleased to sign an education agreement that will allow British schools to open in Morocco, giving Moroccans the opportunity to study using our curriculum, and our schools a dynamic and growing new market.
We look forward to further cooperation in the coming months, and indeed to the next dialogue in Rabat.