Spain's PM heads to Morocco to reap benefits of mended ties

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez travels to Rabat on Wednesday along with 12 ministers for a two-day meet with Moroccan government officials, as part of the European country’s strategy to improve historically complex relations with its neighbor across the Strait of Gibraltar.

The visit comes 10 months after Sánchez went to meet Moroccan King Mohammed VI and put an end to a diplomatic crisis that had erupted in 2021 regarding Morocco's disputed territory of Western Sahara. During that meeting, Sánchez declared “a new phase of bilateral relations” with Morocco, an important partner with the European Union in fighting extremism and aiding the bloc's irregular migration policies.

Sánchez is flying south again on Wednesday and will attend a forum of business leaders from both countries in Rabat. On Thursday he will sit down with Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, a billionaire businessman who won elections in 2021 and is considered close to Mohammed VI.

Sánchez’s agenda does not currently include another meeting with the Moroccan king, with whom he shared the Iftar meal to break the day’s fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan last April in the highlight of their reconciliation.

Moroccans make up the single largest foreign community with 800,000 residents in Spain, and important economic ties unite the neighbors which are separated by just 13 kilometers (8 miles) of water at the nearest point.

But relations between Spain and Morocco were severely damaged in May 2021 after Spain allowed the leader of the Polisario Front, which has waged a low-intensity armed rebellion seeking the Western Sahara’s independence from Morocco, to receive medical treatment for COVID-19 in Spain.

Morocco responded by relaxing its border controls around...