King Mohammed VI (M6)

Dakar has close diplomatic and business relations with Morocco whose King Mohammed VI was due to visit on 25 June and would like to emulate Morocco's success at exporting business and security know-how...

Both the USAand France back King Mohammed VI and dislike the idea of an independent Saharan Arab Democratic Republic...

Mohammed VI is lobbying too with a mid-Junevisit to Benin Cameroon Gabon Niger and Senegal...

Polisario's diplomatic progress last summer (AC Vol 44 No 18) puts King Mohammed VI under pressure at home...

King Mohammed VI has woken up to the realisation that Morocco's campaign to impose its sovereignty over Western Sahara has entered a dangerous new phase...

While King Mohammed VI does not seem to have the same feel for sub-Saharan politics and global power games as his father five years after King Hassan II's death Morocco remains a player for some of his old allies...

This comes three and a half years after King Mohammed VI made his single most important political decision to date to sack Driss Basri his father's coldly efficient Interior Minister...

France has pushed a more Morocco-friendly agenda but keen to mend fences after the Iraq crisis Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin visited Morocco meeting King Mohammed VI in his Tetouan palace and then agreed to fall into line behind the Baker plan...

ECOWAS estimates that some 5 000 troops will be needed in Liberia and hopes that some 2 000 troops from outside the region will be drawn from the USA South Africa and Morocco (whose King Mohamed VI initiated the stillborn Casablanca peace talks which brought Taylor face to face with some of his neighbours: Sierra Leone's President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and Guinea's President Lansana Conté...

While Morocco's King Mohammed VI and Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika did not manage a bilateral meeting in Paris a new French diplomatic initiative may help to resolve the dispute over Western Sahara which has hobbled North African relations for years...

'Apolitical' Premier Driss Jettou chosen by King Mohammed VI to lead another centre left-nationalist coalition must deliver better services and growth: a tall order even for a successful businessman and political manager with recession in Europe and global security worries depressing the economy...