The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, said yesterday in the Senate that the increase in diplomatic tension between Morocco and Algeria is “highly worrying” and that he himself has personally conveyed this concern to the two parties, to whom he has also asked for “restraint and dialogue”.
In response to a question from Senator Pablo Gomez, of Más País, on the “increase of tension in the Sahara“, a year after the Polisario Front declared that the cease-fire with Morocco had been broken and after the rupture of relations between Rabat and Algiers, Albares warned that Rabat and Algiers are two “strategic partners and neighbors” with whom there are “vital interests that we can only advance in a cooperative manner”, such as “energy supply, the regulation of irregular immigration, organized crime, the fight against terrorism”. “Therefore, our own prosperity and stability are at stake” and “our recipe” is “containment and dialogue”, he added.
In his speech, Gomez lamented the change of position of the PSOE regarding Western Sahara, with a discourse that varies depending on “whether it is in the opposition or in government”. In this regard, he recalled that, when in opposition, the Socialists defended “the right to self-determination” and, instead, as a party of the Government have opted for “discretion” and to deny that Spain remains the administering power. For this reason, he asked the Executive to “act with loyalty to Spain” because “Spain is nobody’s subject and deserves to have a free and independent foreign policy, not dictated by Rabat”. In his reply, Albares insisted on the usual argument of his Ministry in favor of “the centrality of the UN” and of “a political, fair and mutually acceptable solution” based on the resolutions of the United Nations.
