Morocco may "re-evaluate" its relations with Spain, says Rabat

Morocco said Thursday that it may have to "re-evaluate" its bilateral relations with Spain following congressional approval of a measure asking the government to "condemn the violent incidents" in Western Sahara last month.

Jalid Naciri, Morocco's communications minister and spokesman for the government, called the measure "a hostile move" against his country, adding that "it contained anti-Moroccan statements that are unacceptable."

The measure presented by the United Left-Catalan Greens (IU-ICV) parliamentary bloc urges Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Socialist government to express its concern to Rabat over alleged human rights violations in the region.

The text is similar to one passed on Tuesday in the Senate and last week in the European Parliament. Shouting Western Sahara supporters had to be evicted from Congress when the vote was taken. The Socialists had agreed to support the measure on the condition that it would not directly blame Rabat for the violence that erupted when Moroccan security forces dismantled a protest camp near Laâyoune on November 8.

"The Spanish political forces once again are putting Morocco in the middle of their internal political bickering and as an election campaign issue to draw the Spanish public's attention away from the profound economic crisis," Naciri said.

The Moroccan administration will meet today to discuss issuing a response to the Spanish parliamentary measure, the government's official news agency MAP said.

On Wednesday, Morocco's Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi-Fihri told a European Parliament hearing in Brussels that "there were no civilian victims, not a single civilian death, no violence."