This Tuesday, the ambassadors of Arab countries held a working dinner in Madrid with Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares. Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheitis visiting Spain. All but Algeria, which retreated to protest the new position in Western Sahara. The diplomatic and commercial reprisals of the Abdülmecid Tebboune Government continue after three months. And the Union doesn’t seem to be mediating the conflict, at least officially, despite Aboul Gheit’s visit.
“The Arab League will not intervene in the Sahara conflict or whatever happens between Morocco and Algeria or between these Arab countries and a third country. [España] unless there is a request; and it never happened”, stated at a joint press conference with Egyptian José Manuel Albares.
this the possibility of the king of Morocco, Mohammed VI, “come personal” The Arab Summit that took place in Algeria on 1 and 2 November (according to the news of the Paris-based Jeune Afrique newspaper) created an expectation of rapprochement between the Rabat and Algerian governments. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in August 2021 due, among other reasons, to the lack of progress in resolving the conflict in the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, which Morocco has occupied since 1975.
Spain urgently needs a reduction in tensions between its two Mediterranean neighbors. Madrid lives trapped in a diplomatic swarm: Rabat clashes with Algeria over the Sahara (among many other issues), and this disrupts Spanish foreign policy, which when one likes it offends the other and vice versa. The consequences are instability in the control of irregular migration, trade reprisals or tensions in the price at which Spain buys gas.
“Of course, if Mohammed VI attends the summit, it will be something new and exceptional, especially since the Moroccan king has been absent recently and has been away from political life,” explains EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, an agent of the Prensa Ibérica group. that it also belongs to. daily, Laurence Thieux PhD in Arab and Islamic Studies from the Autonomous University of Madrid. Will it serve for a rapprochement between the two capitals? Thieux suspects this. “I don’t think they’re going to get very far. In his last speech, the King opened a space for negotiation; he seemed to want to take steps towards détente, but I don’t know how responsive Algeria is to these gestures”.
Mohammed VI extended his hand to the “fraternal people of Algeria” in his annual message for the celebration of the Feast of the Throne, asking the Algerian government to work towards reconciliation. The monarch said the border between the two countries should not be an “impassable wall” but “a bridge for exchange and communication”. However, he did not mention the main conflict between the two countries: the situation in Western Sahara, a coastal region between Morocco and Mauritania inhabited by Saharawis and Moroccans, and Rabat wanted to form part of the country as an autonomous region.
It wasn’t the first time the king of the Alaouite dynasty had opened the door to negotiations in a speech. “Government of Algeria he never buys the goods”, he says in conversation with EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA John Zoubir, Professor of International Relations at Kedge Business School with links within the Algerian Government.
According to this analyst, it is very difficult for the Algerian summit to change anything in the relations between the two countries. The Algerian government “knows very well how to distinguish between bilateral and multilateral issues,” he says.
Swords held high
The facts seem to support this view. Although Morocco will accept the official visit to hand over the invitation of the Algerian Minister of Justice to attend the meeting with the countries of the 22 Unions, other recent gestures indicate that the tension is very high.
On August 27, Morocco left its seat empty at the summit of an important Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), also held in Algeria. Thus, the Alevi kingdom protested. Presence of Brahim Ghali in Tunisia, President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Particularly painful was the respect that Tunisian President Kais Saied showed him: he went to meet him on the steps of the plane and allowed himself to be photographed with the Saharawi leader. Rabat recalled its Tunisian ambassador.
“The welcome of the Tunisian president to the leader of the separatist militia” [RASD] It is a serious and unprecedented act. Deeply hurts Moroccan people’s feelings Morocco said later in a statement collected by this newspaper.
Meanwhile, the Arab League is not at its best. To the usual political tensions between the countries that make it up, the geopolitical instability created by Russia’s war against Ukraine and the attempts of the parties to align different countries were added.
Algeria will benefit from the summit to strengthen its renewed orientation in regional foreign policy. In the years of Abdelaziz Bouteflika (until 2019), “Diplomacy paralyzed”According to Laurence Thieux. Now and after several high-level visits, such as state visits by French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Mario Draghi, Algeria is looking to regain its preeminent position in the region. “Foreign policy means a lot in the DNA of the Algerian government, but also in terms of its internal legitimacy,” Arabist said.