MARRAKECH: Migration is not a security issue, Moroccan King Mohammed VI has said, and migrant rights are “inalienable”, noting that the side of the border on which a migrant stands does not make him or her more or less human. The challenge for the Intergovernmental Conference on the Global Compact for Migration, which opened Monday in this Moroccan resort, is to show that the international community has opted for responsible solidarity, adding that in order to achieve this objective, the sovereign right of each member state to determine and apply its own migration policy ought to be fully respected.
Multilateralism is about synergies and about making commitments in which the right to differ is respected, Mohammed VI added, noting that the challenge for this conference is, therefore, to unite, in the face of populism, to bring together, in the face of isolationism, and to come up, through dialogue and international cooperation, with meaningful solutions to one of the major issues of our time. Migration is not a security issue - nor should it become one, the King said. (IANS)