About 200 Moroccan citizens including community leaders, entrepreneurs, clerics, academics, and some Indonesians attended the meeting at the auditorium of the Rabat Lawyers` Club.
Third Secretary of the Indonesia Embassy in Rabate, Suparman Hasibuan, said in a press release received by ANTARA News in London, Monday, that Indonesian Ambassador to Morocco Tosari Widjaja was also present at the event.
Ambassador Tosari said on the occasion, the existence of the association was important to tighten the relationship between the two nations and hoped the meeting would succeed in making the Indonesia-Morocco Partnership Association better known in Rabat.
He said Indonesia and Morocco were linked to each other by relations that went far back into history. They began when Ibn Bathutah and Maulana Malik Ibrahim came to Indonesia in the middle of the 1300s to spread Islam. In 1955, Indonesian President Soekarno motivated the Asian-African Concerence in Bandung to support Morocco`s independence.
He also said the two countries were now independent and engaged in efforts to develop themselves and hoped the association would contribute to the establishment of bilateral people-to-people contacts and cooperation in many fields.
The Morocco-Indonesia Partnership Association was formed at Ambassador Tosari`s suggestion to several prominent Moroccan figures to serve as a bridge of cooperation between the two countries in various fields.
The idea received a positive response from Moroccan community leaders who then set up a committee to establish the association which was officially launched last August 17 at the Indonesian embassy in Rabat.
Sunday`s meeting formed an 11-member executive board consisting of Prof. Dr. Mariam Ait Ahmed as president. Dr. Belhaj Abdelhanin (vice president), Abdelilah Bouraba (secretary general), Al-Aymine Soudaro (deputy secretary general), Aisse Taib (treasurer), Salma Shamsi (deputy treasurer).
An advisory board was also set up consisting of Nadel Alhashimi, Mohamed Khalil, Mustapha Zebair, Dr. Belhaj Abdelhanin, and Hamza Kitani.
(Uu.SDP-14/HAJM/H-YH/F001)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
