“I am delighted, thanks to the quality of our relations both with my counterpart the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Moroccan ambassador here in Brussels, and despite travel restrictions in the majority of countries in the world, we will be able to organize the return of our nationals whether they are solely Belgian or have two nationalities," the Belgian top diplomat pointed out in an interview with MAP.

The Belgian Minister commended on this occasion the privileged relations between the two Kingdoms, underlining the particular context in which international relations are evolving today due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"I would like to underline the excellent quality of relations between Belgium and Morocco. This is an element that I would like to highlight first. The second element is that this crisis is marked by several events and we are faced in our respective countries with the difficulty of managing the coronavirus pandemic. It is therefore an international crisis," Goffin noted.

"The first element which shows the good quality of relations between our two countries is that we remember that Morocco had announced the suspension of its air traffic and that thanks to the dialogue between our two countries we were able to extend access to the airspace of the Kingdom in order to organize repatriations,” he pointed out.

The Belgian Minister recalled in this context that 7 repatriation flights from Marrakech and Agadir were organized, while the Moroccan authorities had announced the suspension of the air traffic and at the same time in the north of Morocco 18 other flights were operated simultaneously to facilitate return to Belgium.

Goffin also mentioned a second step "which has been common in all countries of the world, namely the suspension of air traffic, except for the transport of goods and then the travel bans to foreigners that many countries have issued."

The Belgian minister said that there is today a third stage which, thanks to good cooperation with Morocco, has found a solution so as to organize new repatriations.

All these elements demonstrate the quality of regular dialogue between Belgium and Morocco, he underlined.

These repatriation operations will be organized on the basis of "humanitarian and social reasons", he said.

"We will be able, with the help of the Moroccan authorities, to repatriate people according to very specific criteria (illness requiring health care in Belgium, risk of job loss, bankruptcy..)", he said, noting that "these criteria can be put forward thanks to the constructive and positive dialogue with our Moroccan friends".

Belgian authorities are currently preparing "a list of people to be repatriated which will be submitted in the next few days to the Moroccan authorities", he pointed out, adding that it is Belgium which will charter the flights.