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Rabat – Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has said he has “no answer” to King Mohammed VI‘s dialogue initiative to restore relations between Morocco and Algeria.
In a meeting with local press on Sunday, Tebboune blamed recent comments by Morocco’s permanent representative to the UN, Omar Hilal, for the primary reason for tensions between Algiers and Rabat.
“For the moment, there is no answer,” Tebboune said, suggesting that the remarks from Hilale ignited a crisis between the two countries.
He added, “We recalled our ambassador to Rabat and asked for explanations from Morocco, but there was no response from them on this subject.”
In July, Hilale expressed support for self-determination for the Kabyle people, a Berber ethnic group in northern Algeria. The declaration angered Algeria, which recalled its ambassador in Rabat and threatened Morocco of further escalations in hostilities.
Algiers’ threatening messages came amid continued hostility against Morocco’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over Western Sahara.
Successive Algerian governments have continued to finance, train, and arm the Polisario Front, a group that claims independence for Western Sahara.
Despite Algiers’ documented hostility toward Rabat, King Mohammed VI devoted the majority of his latest Throne Day Speech to urging Algeria to resume ties with Morocco on the basis of a shared history and Maghrebi brotherhood.
“I am not satisfied with the current state of our relations, for it does not serve our peoples’ interests, nor is it acceptable to a great many countries,” the King said.
The Algerian government decided to close the borders with Morocco in 1994 after Rabat imposed visa regulations on Algerian visitors in the wake of a terrorist attack on the Atlas Asni hostel in Marrakech.
Morocco lifted the visa requirement in 2004, but the border has since remained closed.
King Mohammed VI has repeatedly called for the reopening of borders, saying that open borders should be the norm between the two countries.
Closing the borders “is incompatible with a natural right and intrinsic legal principles,” the monarch said.
While the King explained that neither he nor the current Algerian presidents are responsible for the border closure, he stressed that the current leadership in both countries bears moral and political responsibility for sustaining their hostilities.
Despite the applause the King received locally and internationally for his dialogue offer, Algeria remains reluctant to solve the political stalemate.
In his reaction to King Mohammed VI’s Throne Day speech, the Algerian president declined to address his country’s role in sponsoring hostility against Morocco’s territorial integrity.
He sought instead to portray Algeria as an observer state willing to de-escalate tensions in Western Sahara, claiming that his country is “ready to organize a meeting in Algeria etween the two parties [Polisario and Morocco] to find a solution to the conflict.”
But Tebboune’s claim stands in stark contrast to the views expressed in a series of UN reports and resolutions in recent years. Echoing Morocco’s position on Algerian involvement in the Sahara conflict, resolutions from the UN Security Council maintain that Algeria should participate in the Western Sahara political process as a main party to the conflict, and not merely as an observer.
