Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks at a news conference held jointly with Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation, and Moroccans Residing Abroad of the Kingdom of Morocco Nasser Bourita, Moscow, October 16, 2025
16 October 2025 16:12
1710-16-10-2025
Ladies and gentlemen,
I held useful and substantive talks with my colleague and friend Nasser Bourita, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation, and Moroccans Residing Abroad of the Kingdom of Morocco.
We reiterated mutual firm commitment to continuing joint work aimed at further strengthening the traditionally friendly and trust-based strategic partnership between our two countries.
We reviewed in detail bilateral issues and briefly touched on trade and economic exchanges. Both sides are interested in expanding trade and identifying areas for mutual investment.
We agreed that the potential for practical cooperation in these areas is far from being exhausted. We did not go into great detail on this today, as tomorrow will be largely devoted to the 8th Meeting of the Russian-Moroccan Intergovernmental Joint Commission on Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation. My colleague co-chairs the Commission on the Moroccan side, and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev co-chairs it from the Russian side. The agenda of the Intergovernmental Commission is rich and diverse, and we are looking forward to seeing good results.
We were pleased to note the high level of interaction in a number of other areas, particularly in the humanitarian sphere, notably, education. Currently, 4,250 Moroccan students are studying in Russia. There is strong interest in obtaining education in our country, and we will continue to support it as best we can. We will do our best to accommodate everyone wishing to study at Russian universities.
We discussed promising contacts between our media outlets as well. There are reciprocal journalist visits and internship exchanges, which we will continue to encourage as well.
Our foreign ministries maintain steady and trusting contacts, primarily at the United Nations, as well as in other international venues, including the Russia-Africa and Russia-Arab League forums.
We share the view that our interaction and coordination will be further enhanced by the Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of an Inter-Ministerial Working Committee to deepen the strategic partnership between the Russian Federation and the Kingdom of Morocco, which was just signed in your presence.
We exchanged views on urgent international challenges prioritising the situation in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel-Sahara region. We also discussed the situation surrounding the Western Sahara settlement in light of ongoing discussions at the UN Security Council.
We reaffirmed our principled position in favour of resolving all remaining issues and conflicts in Africa and other parts of the world exclusively by political and diplomatic means relying on the fundamental principles and norms of international law enshrined in the UN Charter. We share the view that these principles must not be applied selectively à la carte, but be fully respected and implemented in their entirety and interconnection.
We discussed in detail the situation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone. Morocco traditionally plays an important part in promoting efforts towards peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue. In this regard, we note the role played by His Majesty King Mohammed VI as Chairman of the Al-Quds Committee of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
We welcomed the emerging positive changes on the ground, meaning the Palestinian territories, primarily the Gaza Strip. We expressed satisfaction with the successful launch of the first phase of the agreements between Israel and Hamas on a ceasefire in Gaza and an exchange of detainees. This agreement was reached with the mediation of the United States, Egypt, Qatar, and Türkiye.
We expect - and this is our shared position - that the agreements will be strictly observed, taking into account the results of the peace summit held on October 13 in Sharm el-Sheikh, and that their implementation will not mark the end of the process, but will be followed by further steps. These were discussed extensively, including at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit.
The ceasefire in Gaza must be sustainable in order to enable the delivery of humanitarian aid and the subsequent large-scale rebuilding of the enclave's infrastructure, which has been almost completely destroyed during the hostilities. Otherwise, our efforts to create conditions for the return of internally displaced persons and refugees will not succeed. These are serious matters. It is important to address them in a way that does not undermine the prospects for full implementation of UN resolutions on the establishment of a Palestinian state, and to ensure that the humanitarian processes currently underway contribute to the creation of conditions for a political solution that eliminates the core causes of the Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli conflicts. It is essential to resume the Middle East peace process as soon as possible based on UN resolutions providing for the creation of an independent Palestinian state living in peace and security side by side with Israel.
We expressed our appreciation to our Moroccan colleagues for their balanced and well-considered position on the situation in and around Ukraine. In Rabat, as in most capitals of the Global South and the Global East, there is an understanding that a sustainable settlement is impossible without addressing the underlying causes of the crisis, namely, the security threats to Russia that NATO has created over many years by moving its military infrastructure ever closer to our borders, and using Ukraine as a launching pad to create threats to our country.
This also includes gross violations, even legislative bans, of the rights of the Russian-speaking people in Ukraine, not only linguistic rights but also religious rights when, along with outlawing the Russian language, the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church was banned.
I would like to close by noting that next year marks the 10th anniversary of the adoption, at the top level, of the Joint Statement on Deepening the Strategic Partnership. We agreed to mark the occasion with a series of events, including exchanges of delegations between sector-specific ministries and the stepping up of parliamentary contacts. Our Moroccan friends have supported the idea of holding Russian Culture Days in Morocco.
We will continue to maintain an all-embracing and trust-based dialogue.
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