By Tala Youssef | Staff Writer
In a recent interview, Algerian President Tebboune stated that his country’s relations with neighboring Morocco reached a point of no return. What are the geopolitical issues that lie behind the long rivalry between the brother nations?
Algiers and Rabat do not share the same opinion on the Western Sahara question. The region has been a disputed territory for more than 60 years and is on the U.N.’s list of non-self-governing territories.
Morocco views the desert as an integral part of their territory and as a national cause. The Kingdom blames the existence of an artificial political border – separating the desert from the North – on Spain’s older colonial projects when the region was referred to as the Spanish Sahara. Before abandoning the area, the colonial power did not finalize an independence process. Algeria on another hand, defends the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination.
The contention over the desert is largely fueled by its natural wealth. The region is rich in phosphates and has a long coast along the Atlantic. If you include the disputed region, Morocco owns over 70% of the world’s phosphate reserves.
Algeria has been supporting the Polisario Front, a movement for Sahrawi liberation, since its establishment in 1975. The Front, enjoying financial aid, training, and a supply of arms from Algeria, was actively fighting against Morocco until a 1991 ceasefire. However, the ceasefire did not halt tensions in the desert, as the situation frequently escalates between Moroccan
forces and the armed wing of Polisario. Algeria and Morocco’s land border has been closed as a consequence, since 1994.
Tensions reached a new height in 2020. Under the Trump administration, D.C. recognized the kingdom’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, after Morocco – a country with ancient Jewish heritage – normalized ties with Israel. This rapprochement angered Algiers, with the President accusing Morocco of forming an intelligence alliance with Israel, against his own country. Moreover, Algeria stained its friendship with Spain when it took a pro-Morocco stance on the question of the desert, after the U.S.-brokered agreement.
Algeria severed all diplomatic ties with its neighbors in the months that followed. Mohammed IV has called for a restoration of ties, but Tebboune won’t budge. Diplomatic hostilities continue to escalate between both countries, in what we call the Maghreb Cold War.