The Diplomat
The Algerian government yesterday recalled its ambassador in Madrid, Said Moussi, for consultations “with immediate effect” following Spain’s change of position on Western Sahara, according to the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In a note, the Ministry affirms that it has been “very surprised” by Spain’s support for Morocco’s autonomy project for the Sahara, and therefore calls for consultations with Ambassador Moussi, who had been in Madrid for less than three months and had presented his Letters of Credence to the King on 13 February last.
This is the first official response from Algiers to the government’s decision to describe the autonomy plan for Western Sahara presented by the Moroccan authorities in 2007 as “the most serious, credible and realistic basis” for reaching a solution to the conflict, as Rabat has long sought.
Hours before the measure by Abdelmajid Tebboune’s government was announced, diplomatic sources in the Maghreb country, quoted by the Algerian news portal TSA and picked up by Europa Press, stressed that “Morocco has finally obtained what it wanted from Spain”. They refer to the Spanish decision as “the second betrayal”, indicating that the first occurred with the agreement signed on 14 November 1975, by which Spain ceded Western Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania, without taking into account the will of the Sahrawi population.
Government sources said yesterday that the Spanish government had previously informed the Algerian government of Spain’s position on the Sahara and, in line with what was stated on Friday by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, affirmed that “Algeria is a strategic, priority and reliable partner with which we intend to maintain a privileged relationship”.
On Friday, Albares implied that the government believes that the entente with Morocco will not have any particular consequences on relations with Algiers, which it considers a “reliable partner”. The government predicted that the strategic partnership between Madrid and Algiers is destined to last over time” and does not believe that there will be any reprisals in the supply of Algerian gas, on which Spain is highly dependent.
Yesterday, the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, insisted that the change in Spain’s position will allow for a ‘good’ and ‘stable’ relationship with Morocco, with a commitment to ‘collaborate against human trafficking mafias and illegal immigration’.
However, the profound change in the historical position of Spain, which has always, with governments of different political persuasions, defended “a political, just, lasting and mutually agreed solution within the framework of the United Nations”, has provoked a reaction from the Polisario Front.
The movement that dominates the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) issued a statement yesterday calling Morocco’s support for the autonomy plan “regrettable”.
The Polisario affirms that “the position expressed by the government lacks credibility, seriousness, responsibility and realism, because it is a dangerous deviation, contradicts international legitimacy, gives support to the occupation, and aims to legitimise the repression, war crimes and plundering of wealth that Morocco continues to use against the Saharawi people”.
He also considers that the change of opinion “seems to be” the result of “months of intense Moroccan blackmail” against Spain to re-establish diplomatic relations “in their previous state”. He adds that this new position is “very dangerous” because it shows “clear support for Morocco’s unilateral approach”, “in contradiction with international law”.
After recalling that international organisations such as the UN, the EU and the African Union do not recognise “any Moroccan sovereignty” over Western Sahara, the statement affirms: “We had hoped that Spain, out of impartiality and a sense of its legal and historical responsibilities, would accompany the two parties and the new (UN) personal envoy to revitalise the political process. It is regrettable that Madrid opted, once again, to submit to Moroccan blackmail and dissipate the hopes that existed, fuelling the tension, the escalation.
The former Spanish colony of Western Sahara was occupied by Morocco in 1975 despite the resistance of the Polisario Front, with whom it was at war until 1991, when the two parties signed a ceasefire with a view to holding a referendum on self-determination, but differences over the drawing up of the census and the inclusion or not of the Moroccan settlers have so far prevented it from being called.
The Polisario Front ends by calling on the Spanish political forces and “all the peoples of Spain” to put pressure on the government to “correct this regrettable mistake”, and thus oblige the executive to “assume its original responsibilities”.
At the domestic level, criticism has rained down on the executive, both from the opposition and from the government’s partners and allies.
Thus, the parliamentary groups Republican, Más País, Compromís, NCa, CC, Junts per Catalunya, PDeCAT, CUP, EH-Bildu, BNG, and PNV announced that tomorrow, Monday, they will ask the Congress of Deputies to summon the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to give an account of the change of position regarding Western Sahara.
Yesterday, the PP presidential candidate, Albero Nuñez Feijóo, accused Sánchez of breaking a parliamentary consensus of almost 50 years on foreign policy, and added that Spaniards cannot learn of this agreement from the Government of Morocco, as he considers it to be “a lack of respect that cannot be accepted”.
The FAES Foundation, headed by former Prime Minister José María Aznar, was particularly critical in an editorial in which it described the government’s turnaround as a ‘political botch job’ and a ‘defeat’ in diplomatic terms vis-à-vis Morocco.
“The Government aligns itself without nuances with the Moroccan position, accepts its pretensions and by linking this new Spanish position with the guarantee of Morocco’s territorial integrity -as stated in the aforementioned letter- there is no need for complicated interpretations to conclude that Sánchez attributes sovereignty over the Sahara to Morocco’, FAES regrets: “It thus reproduces the precedent of Donald Trump”, it says.
According to FAES, the Government “ignores the responsibilities of our country as a colonising power and renounces to be an active party in the search for a solution, in addition to opening a foreseeable crisis with Algeria at a time when it is convenient to take care of alternative gas producers to Russia”. And this, he adds, is happening with a “government that calls itself progressive” and is “made up of parties that made pilgrimages to Tindouf to have their photos taken with the Saharawis and populated all kinds of associations of solidarity and friendship with them”.
From Unidas Podemos, the Secretary of State for the 2030 Agenda and Secretary General of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), Enrique Santiago, said yesterday that the Spanish government, of which he is a member, “cannot support any measure contrary to the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people”.
Santiago affirmed that “Morocco is maintaining a situation of occupation, colonial” over the Sahara, so that what is happening there, he argued, is “a scenario very similar to that of Ukraine”, a country invaded by Russia, and has been going on “for too many years”.
