Moroccan King to visit France’s Hollande for security talks

French President Francois Hollande is set to receive Morocco’s King Mohammed VI of on Friday afternoon in Pairs, the French Presidency said in a statement on Thursday according to Morocco World News.

The meeting is set to take place in the afternoon, according to the French Presidency’s office the Élysée.

The meeting comes a week after the Paris attacks last Friday claimed the lives of 129 people and left over 350 people injured. A Moroccan engineer was reportedly among the victims.

Morocco has been playing a central role in global efforts in recent years in combatting extremism.

According to Magnus Norell in an op-ed for European Foundation for Democracy, “The King has ordered the Moroccan “Superior Ulema Council” (Highest religious authority) to weigh in on the meaning of jihad, a powerful concept at the core of Islamist belief,” he wrote.

In doing so, Norell added that Morocco is willing to take the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) theologically, not just militarily.

King Mohammed was reportedly also one of the first Arab head of state to call his France’s Hollande following the attacks and ensured Moroccan intelligence were readily available to their French counterparts.

International cooperation has been called upon after France said that a “non-European country provided French intelligence services with information” on the potential whereabouts of the alleged mastermind of the Paris terrorist attacks.

“It was only on November 16, after the attacks in Paris, that the Intelligence Services of country outside Europer eported that it was aware of his presence in Greece,” French Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve said.

“An intelligence service outside Europe suggested that he could be in France,” he added.

[With Reuters]