The Diplomat
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel next week to Morocco and Algeria as part of a tour of several countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The visit to Rabat will take place two days before the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, to launch the “new stage” in relations with Morocco.
According to the State Department’s agenda, Blinken will travel to Israel, the West Bank, Morocco and Algeria between March 26-30 to address a range of regional and global priorities, including the war in Ukraine, Iran’s destabilizing activities, the Abraham Accords for normalization with Israel and Israeli-Palestinian relations.
In Rabat, the Secretary of State will meet with Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita and other members of the government to exchange views on regional issues and bilateral cooperation, as well as to promote human rights and fundamental freedoms. Blinken will then travel to Algiers to meet with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra to discuss regional security and stability, trade cooperation, the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and other areas of mutual interest. Algerian sources quoted by the daily El Español have indicated that one of the objectives of the trip is to convince Algeria to reestablish the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline, which passes through Morocco and which was closed by the Algerian government last October 31 after the breakdown of diplomatic relations.
Blinken’s presence in Rabat will take place two days before Albares’ trip to Morocco to articulate a “new stage” and develop “a clear and ambitious roadmap” in bilateral relations with the neighboring country (following the serious diplomatic crisis that erupted in 2021), as the minister announced Wednesday during a tense meeting of the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee to explain the decision of Pedro Sánchez’s government to endorse the autonomy plan for Western Sahara, proposed by Morocco in 2007. All parliamentary groups of all stripes (with the exception of the PSOE) have rejected both the substance and the forms of this radical turn in Spanish foreign policy. In addition, Algeria (the main supplier of gas to Spain, a particularly important fact in the context of the current war between Russia and Ukraine) has expressed its indignation at this measure and has recalled its ambassador to Madrid for consultations.
In the background of this change of course in Spanish policy is the decision of the previous US president, Donald Trump, to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the territory, which served as a trigger for the serious diplomatic crisis experienced by Rabat and Madrid since the spring of 2021, aggravated by the allegedly irregular entry into Spain of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali. Morocco has insisted that the real cause of the crisis was due to the fact that Spain had not adopted a position of open support for Rabat’s pretensions in the Sahara, as the United States had done. On 18 January last, Albares and Blinken undertook, during the minister’s official trip to Washington, to “join forces to resolve a conflict which has gone on too long and for which a solution must be found”, the head of Spanish diplomacy declared.
On the other hand, the Prime Minister of Morocco, Aziz Ajanuch, yesterday welcomed the support of Spain for the autonomy plan for Western Sahara and praised the “shrewd diplomatic management” of King Mohamed VI, ultimately responsible for Moroccan foreign policy. On the contrary, the Coordinadora Estatal de Asociaciones Solidarias con el Sáhara (CEAS-Sahara) called for this Saturday a rally in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in favor of self-determination for the Saharawi people and in protest against the turn of the Spanish government.
Meanwhile, the spokeswoman of the Popular Group in Congress, Cuca Gamarra, yesterday urged the Government to “rectify and apologize” to Congress and to the Spanish people for having changed its policy towards Western Sahara in a “unilateral” way. Apart from this, Esquerra Republicana (ERC) and EH Bildu have announced their intention to present a non-legislative proposal so that the Plenary of the Congress endorses the UN resolutions in favor of self-determination. The two signatory groups intend that the initiative can be debated on April 5, four days after the trip of Albares and almost a week after Pedro Sanchez appears before the plenary of the Lower House to address the Saharawi question.
