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Rabat – Muhammad Al-Hafid Al Nahwi, President of the Islamic Cultural Rally in Mauritania, has denounced the escalating tensions between Morrocco and Algeria, urging the two countries to show restraint and prioritize regional stability.
“We scholars, sheikhs and opinion leaders, follow with great concern the rapid developments in the Maghreb region,” the Mauritanian Islamic scholar said.
“We call on all the leaders of the region to give priority to the language of higher interests and to refuse to be drawn into propaganda fueled by war trumpets and their advocates,” he added.
The scholar commended Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazwani for his efforts to help solve the diplomatic rift between Algiers and Rabat.
Al Nahwi also applauded King Mohammed VI’s repeated dialogue initiatives to open a new page of cooperation with Algeria.
Quoting King Mohammed VI’s July 31 Throne Speech in which the monarch said that anything that undermines Algeria’s stability will also affect Morocco, the Mauritanian scholar hailed the Moroccan King for refusing to drag his country into a war with Algeria despite rising tensions.
“We also call, on behalf of scholars, sheikhs, and imams in the Islamic Cultural Assembly in Mauritania and Western Africa, for the Algerian leadership to give priority to the logic of nations’ supreme interest and spare the region more tension and escalation that affects the Maghreb’s peoples and their development programs,” he said.
The Mauritanian scholar also called on all scholars and sheikhs in Algeria to strive to prevent “bloodshed and reconcile relations” with Morocco.
Al Nahwi is not the first public figure to call on Algeria to de-escalate tensions with Morocco to avoid an all-out war that would cause untold suffering and devastation in the Maghreb.
Following Algeria’s decision to sever relations with Morocco, several countries and regional organizations expressed concerns and offered to mediate to end the stalemate between Rabat and Algiers.
Among the regional organizations to have urged the two neighbors to engage in dialogue was the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which called on leaders in both countries to avert an unnecessary and potentially disastrous conflict.
Despite mounting concerns over the deteriorating situation, Algeria recently came up with new allegations to attack Morocco.
The latest was Algiers’ decision to accuse Morocco of attacking and killing three Algerian truckers in Mauritania.
In response, Mauritania’s army issued a statement saying that no such incident had taken place on Mauritanian soil.
A few days later, MINURSO, the UN peacekeeping operation in Western Sahara, said that the incident actually took place in Bir Lahlou, a buffer zone in Western Sahara.
However, instead of a drone attack by Morocco, as Algeria’s government has claimed, the three Algerians are now believed to have died in a mine explosion in a restricted zone.
While MINURSO is still investigating the exact circumstances of the incident, the suspicious presence of Algerian nationals in a sensitive zone in Western Sahara has raised questions about Algeria’s role in the Sahara conflict.
