In Nouakchott, on May 9 and 10, the very first Moroccan-Mauritanian parliamentary forum will be held, an unprecedented event that illustrates the densification of links between Rabat and Nouakchott. The initiative, of protocol appearance, actually translates a deeper dynamic of strategic rapprochement between two long distant states, today resolutely engaged in multidimensional cooperation.
Born from a proposal made in July 2022 by Naam Miyara, then president of the Chamber of Councilors, this project slowly walked, slowed down by the diplomatic and calendar vagaries. However, he experienced significant acceleration from February 2024, when Rachid Talbi Alami, president of the House of Representatives, went on an official visit to Nouakchott. This meeting made it possible to relaunch parliamentary discussions at the highest level.
But it was especially the bilateral interview of December 20, 2024 in Casablanca, between His Majesty King Mohammed VI and his Mauritanian counterpart Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, who gave a decisive impetus to this parliamentary diplomacy. Barely two weeks before this summit, the president of the Mauritanian National Assembly, Mohamed Ould Meguett, had made an official visit to Morocco, thus consolidating an diplomatic sequence marked by an unprecedented intensification of high -level contacts.
The organization of the parliamentary forum is part of a now structured institutional framework. In 2024, a Mauritania-Maroc parliamentary friendship group was born, bringing together twenty deputies from all Mauritanian political forces, a majority as opposition. This configuration testifies to the will, shared on both sides, to anchor cooperation in a pluralist and sustainable dialogue between representative institutions.
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An expanding bilateral relationship
Beyond the symbolic display, this forum is part of a process of strategic redeployment of relations between Rabat and Nouakchott. The Moroccan-Mauritanian axis is strengthened on several fronts: diplomatic, security, economic and infrastructure.
On the economic level, Morocco has recently been committed to supporting Mauritania in the implementation of its own stock market square, the future Nouakchott scholarship. This project, still embryonic, could eventually position the Mauritanian capital as a new regional financial hub, with the support of Moroccan expertise in terms of regulation and structuring of capital markets.
Another symbolic project: the construction of the border post in Amgala, now completed at more than 95 %. This crossing point, both logistical and strategic, aims to fluidify exchanges through the Sahara and to redefine commercial corridors between Morocco and West Africa. It is part of the Moroccan vision of reinforced regional integration, in which Mauritania is called to play a pivotal role.
A regional anchoring in recomposition
The holding of the parliamentary forum also intervenes in a regional context in recomposition, where alliances are re -evaluated in terms of tensions in the Sahel and the crumbling of certain multilateral institutions. In this context, Morocco and Mauritania seem determined to tighten the ranks, both to defend their common interests and to build lasting partnerships, apart from the logic of ideological blocks.
This gradual but methodical rapprochement also reactivates a neighborhood long marked by distrust. Nouakchott, while preserving its diplomatic balances, expresses more and more clearly its interest in pragmatic cooperation with Morocco, especially in the fields of security, infrastructure and governance.
Parliamentary diplomacy, often relegated to the background, becomes in this context a strategic lever. It helps to consolidate the political foundations of a partnership that the two states now want irreversible.
