After three weeks of Moroccan calls to launch a joint initiative for dialogue, Algeria yesterday called for activating the Arab Maghreb Union “as soon as possible”, Algerian Echorouk Online reported.

“Algeria has notified the General-Secretary of the Arab Maghreb Union, Tayeb Bakouche, to organise a meeting for the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Maghreb Union and to direct this request to the foreign ministers of the union’s member states,” the news site reported the official Algerian news agency APS saying.

“The initiative is based on the firm conviction of Algeria, which has expressed on many occasions the need to push the course of the Maghreb and its institutions,” APS said.

The call for the meeting is “an extension of the recommendations of the recent extraordinary summit of the African Union held in Ethiopia which decided institutional reforms and procedures to integrate African countries”.