PM: ‘Foreign manoeuvres’ in Western Sahara destabilising Algeria

ALGIERS: Algeria’s prime minister on Saturday criticised ‘foreign manoeuvres’ he said aimed to destabilise it, after Washington recognised Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for Rabat normalising ties with Israel.

His comments came just hours before the US said it had adopted a ‘new official’ map of Morocco that includes the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

Algeria, Morocco’s neighbour and regional rival, is the key foreign backer of the Polisario Front, which has campaigned for independence for Western Sahara since the 1970s.

“There are foreign manoeuvres which aim to destabilise Algeria,” Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad said, in Algeria’s first reaction to the US decision.

“There is now a desire by the Zionist entity to come closer to our borders,” he added, in reference to Israel. “We are seeing today at our borders... wars and instability around Algeria,” Djerad said, in a speech to mark the anniversary of demonstrations against French colonial rule.

The surprise announcement by outgoing President Donald Trump on Thursday of US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara was swiftly dismissed by the Polisario, which has vowed to fight on until Moroccan forces withdraw.

The Polisario had already announced last month that it regarded a 1991 ceasefire as over, after Morocco sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone to reopen the road to neighbouring Mauritania, Morocco’s sole land link to sub-Saharan Africa.

The Polisario has since claimed that repeated exchanges of fire have taken place along the 2,700-kilometre sand barrier that separates the two sides.

— AFP photo David T. Fischer (left), US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco, and his wife Jennifer stand before a US State Department-authorised map of Morocco recognising the internationally-disputed territory of the Western Sahara (bearing a signature by Fischer) as a part of the North African kingdom, in Morocco’s capital Rabat.