Since Houphouët-Boigny, Abidjan has backed Morocco’s integrity in Sahara
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Ivoire Actu
Since Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Ivory Coast has backed Morocco’s territorial integrity and its autonomy plan, without recognising the SADR. This stance dates back to personal ties with Hassan II and the 1975 appointment of an Ivorian ad hoc judge to the ICJ, according to Ivoire Actu.
Ivory Coast has supported Morocco’s territorial integrity in the Sahara since Félix Houphouët-Boigny, according to Ivoire Actu. Abidjan favours the autonomy plan proposed by Rabat and has kept its distance from recognising the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), proclaimed by the Polisario Front in February 1976.
According to the same outlet, this line rests on personal ties between Félix Houphouët-Boigny and King Hassan II from the 1960s and 1970s. In 1975, Rabat chose Alphonse Boni, then president of Ivory Coast’s Supreme Court, as ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). After Houphouët-Boigny’s death in 1993, Henri Konan Bédié, Laurent Gbagbo and then Alassane Ouattara maintained this refusal to recognise the SADR. For another perspective on this history, read the account by the Moroccan ambassador to Ivory Coast.
