Spain’s reversal in favor of the Moroccan position on the thorny issue of Western Sahara was “morally and historically unacceptable,” Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said on Saturday evening, April 23.
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In an interview with national media, the president condemned the Spanish government’s March 18 announcement of support for a Moroccan autonomy plan that broke with the former colonial power’s traditional position of neutrality.
“We have very close ties with the Spanish state, but the head of government (Pedro Sanchez, ed.) ruined everything,” added the Algerian leader. Mr Sanchez called the Moroccan plan “the most serious, realistic and credible basis for resolving this dispute”.
A change”
Algiers announced a “about-face” by Spain, recalling its ambassador to Spain on March 19 and demanding “clarifications” ahead of a possible return of its representative to Madrid. The conflict in this vast desert area, surrounded by fish-rich waters and a rich mining subsoil, and considered a “non-autonomous territory” by the UN, has pitted Morocco against the Algiers-backed Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front for decades. . .
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Rabat, which controls nearly 80% of Western Sahara, is proposing an autonomy plan under its sovereignty, while the Polisario is calling for a self-determination referendum that was planned by the UN when a ceasefire was signed in 1991 but never materialized. “The UN considers Spain as the administering power until there is a solution in Western Sahara,” Tebboune continued. Algeria calls for “the application of international law”. “Spain must not give up its historical responsibility and must revise its position,” he added. However, President Tebboune stressed that Algeria “would never give up its commitments to ensure gas supplies to Spain under any circumstances”.
Spain is heavily dependent on Algeria for its gas supplies. In early April, Algerian state-owned oil and gas company Sonatrach had mentioned an increase in the price of gas shipped to Spain due to the surge in markets due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sonatrach Managing Director Toufik Hakkar then pointed out to the official agency APS that “it was not out of the question to carry out a ‘recalculation’ of the prices with our Spanish customer”.
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