Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita Before Their Meeting

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, good afternoon.  It’s a great pleasure to welcome my friend, Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, here to the State Department, back to the State Department.  We have a longstanding, historic, and steadfast partnership with Morocco, which has been such an important force for stability, for peace, for progress and moderation – something that we deeply value and appreciate.

We are working together in so many different areas.  We have our upcoming African Lion exercises that you’ll be hosting.  But I would also point out the leadership that Morocco has showed working on normalization with Israel and in areas of profound importance to the world, including on climate change and on renewable energy, where Morocco’s been a real leader.  But we have a lot of work that we’ve done together over the last couple of years, and I was eager for this opportunity to – both to catch up and to move forward on some of the things that we’re working on together.

So welcome, it’s very good to have you here.

FOREIGN MINISTER BOURITA:  Thank you.  Thank you very much, Tony, for the warm welcome.  It’s always a pleasure to be here back in Washington and to exchange with you on our many shared interests.  Our friendship is solid and historic, and our partnership I think has never been stronger as it is today.  His Majesty King Mohammed VI values this partnership based on our shared commitments for peace, stability, and prosperity.

Our discussions are always productive and constructive, and I think today I’m looking forward for the same spirit to serve our people but also peace and stability worldwide.  Thank you.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you very much.  Thanks, everyone.