The Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs (CORCAS) held, here Tuesday, its first meeting after its restructuring on March 25 on the occasion of king Mohammed VI's visit to the southern provinces.
The CORCAS meeting agenda includes establishing the council regulations, which will be submitted to the sovereign and the election of nine deputy-presidents elected among the members having a deliberative power.

 Besides the CORCAS 140 members, Interior minister, Chakib Benmoussa, Foreign minister, Mohamed Benaissa and Interior minister delegate, Fouad Ali El Himma were also present in this meeting.
 
    Speaking at the meeting’s opening, CORCAS new head, Khali Hanna Ould Er-Rachid, voiced optimism about the meeting, which marks, according to him, "a historical stage in our country’s history."
 
    "Everyone is deeply aware of the heavy responsibility he was entrusted with by king Mohammed VI, which is a motivation for mobilization in order to fulfill this mission with determination," he underlined.
 
    The CORCAS chairman recalled that the royal visit to the southern provinces was “a decisive turning point” for the southern provinces, for its “symbolism”, the political messages it has transmitted and “the satisfaction it has created among the Sahrawis.” 
 
    Thanks to the royal solicitude, the CORCAS members can “work with seriousness, selflessness, devotion and sincere patriotism without political obstacles or administrative and bureaucratic handicaps,” he noted.
 
    Besides its mission to draw up proposals related to the development issues in the region and defend the kingdom’s territorial integrity, the Council should work to “facilitate the return of our brothers in the camps to their homeland and among their relatives through a civilized method in terms of communication and persuasion.”
 
    Ould Rachid called on showing open-mindedness and good intentions “so as we could establish the truth and show the new reality of Morocco” that has become possible “thanks to the openness policy conducted by the king who lays the founding stones of a new Morocco.” 
 
    He stressed that the country’s unity, within the framework of “ political openness and the effective and sheer participation in the management of public affairs,” remains “the genuine choice and the single solution for all the Sahrawis,” in all their components and tendencies.
 
    The objective is to show the world that “the separatism and division partisans are isolated and represent nobody,” he affirmed.
 
    The CORCAS is a body dedicated to the economic and social development of the southern provinces and the safeguarding of their cultural identity.
 
    It is composed of elected officials, who constitute more than 50% of its members and members of the new emerging elite that will give a new breath to the Council, which also includes civil society members that work in the human rights and social fields.