Russia praises wisdom of Moroccan authorities - Russian president's

RABAT, September 19 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia praises the Moroccan
authorities for being wise enough to launch political reforms at the very
beginning of what is called the 'Arab spring," Russian president's African
envoy Mikhail Margelov said on Sunday.
Margelov arrived here earlier on Sunday as part of his African tour.
He held talks with Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation
Taieb Fassi-Fehri and handed over to the Moroccan foreign minister a
written address of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to King of Morocco
Mohammed VI.
"We hail forthcoming elections in Morocco and the ideas about
amendments to the country's constitution King Mohammed VI has put forth,"
Margelov said in an interview with Itar-Tass.
"Morocco has traditionally demonstrated and is demonstrating now its
political wisdom," the Russian envoy stressed. "Being virtually a part of
the Western bloc in the period of the Cold War, both in terms of politics
and defence, Morocco nevertheless maintained good relations with the
former Soviet Union, and cooperation between the two countries developed
in all possible areas. Now, Moroccans also are demonstrating their
political wisdom both in domestic and foreign political affairs."
"In its relations with the Arab world, Moscow has enormous positive
experience which should be further augmented in order to go further on,"
he went on. Russia used to have relations with the Middle East and North
Africa under the tsar regime, in the Soviet times and we have always had
something to offer to this part of the globe. We have such relations now
and they will go on with our grandchildren and great grandchildren."
He said it was vitally important that "Russia has never acted as a
colonizer in Africa and in the Arab world." "Our army has never fought
against these states," he noted. "Over the entire history of our
relations, we have trained tens, and maybe hundreds, of thousands of
specialists who have always led mordenization processes in their
countries."
"The myth that the Russian-Arab friendship is allegedly weakening with
the descend of authoritarian regimes from the Arab scene is nothing more
than an invention of our foes," he stressed.