South Africa and Morocco will resume diplomatic ties more than a decade after Morocco withdrew its ambassador from Pretoria, South African President Jacob Zuma said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday.

Morocco recalled its ambassador from South Africa in 2004 after former South African president Thabo Mbeki recognised a breakaway region in the Western Sahara which Morocco claims as part of its territory.

“Morocco is an African nation and we need to have relations with them,” Zuma told City Press in the interview. “We never had problems with them anyway; they were the first to withdraw diplomatic relations.”

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