The resumption of ties with Morocco hinges entirely on Algeria’s willingness to do so, as the latter unilaterally chose to close its land borders 30 years ago (in August 1994) and then, in 2021, similarly severed all diplomatic ties with Morocco.
Despite this, Morocco has extended olive branches to Algeria on multiple occasions, only to have its gestures rebuffed. Algeria has linked any resumption of ties with the Kingdom to the “elimination of the causes” that led to the rupture. According to “seasoned” Algerian diplomat Ramtane Lamamra, these causes include alleged “Moroccan aggressions in 1963 against Algeria” and the “War of the Sands,” falsely attributed to Morocco. The War of the Sands erupted following repeated attacks on Moroccan border posts and the assassination of Moroccan border guards, despite numerous special envoy missions sent by Morocco to engage with Algerian leaders.
A victim itself of the neocolonial doctrine, Algeria followed suit by inciting the war in hopes of undermining Morocco’s territorial claims to the East and Southeast of the Kingdom, including large territories annexed by France to its Algerian department before its departure from Algeria, such as Tindouf.
Today, Ahmed Attaf, the current Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, boldly claims full responsibility for the closure of the land borders, paradoxically expressing commitment to the Maghreb yet eagerness to find a swift solution with Morocco.
It was Algeria that chose to close its land borders and sever its relations with Morocco, so it is solely up to Algeria to reverse its course in its relationship with Morocco.
However, in my opinion, that alone would not suffice, given the significant changes in regional and international political and diplomatic contexts since 1994. In my view, Algeria should align itself with the position of several influential countries (including the United States, Spain, France, and many Arab countries) to support the Moroccan autonomy plan for the Sahara, withdraw its recognition of the SADR, allow the United Nations to register the Sahrawi populations of Tindouf, solemnly and officially commit to the implementation of agreements and conventions concluded with Morocco in the 1970s, and address the issue of Moroccans arbitrarily and inhumanely expelled from Algeria in 1975.
In my opinion, these are the conditions Algeria should meet if it truly wants to defrost its relations with Morocco. Algeria’s decisions–the most catastrophic having been the creation of the Polisario–have caused enormous harm to Morocco, and the Maghreb dream, and have consequently hindered and compromised any positive progress toward Maghreb integration for several decades.
Algeria’s self-imposed isolation within the Maghreb–and actually the entire globe–has greatly undermined regional progress, especially Algeria itself, which struggles masochistically to embark upon a path of meaningful development.
In conflict with most countries in the world and several of its immediate neighbors, Algeria continues to overestimate its role and position on the international political stage, with these visions of grandeur resulting in the fallacious position that nothing of geopolitical significance can be decided without Algeria, the “epicenter” of global diplomacy. In other words, Algiers still lives within the context of the euphoria of the independence of the 1960s and 1970s, during which dictatorial systems–emanating from colonialism’s denouement–utilized demagogy and endless propaganda as their best weapons to perpetuate their power, uncoincidentally like the current regime in Algeria.
With all the reputational damage caused to Morocco, the Maghreb, the Arab world, and the fundamental causes of the Arab peoples at the hands of Algeria, it would be risky to imagine, with such simplicity, a resumption of ties with Morocco, which–since 1994–has made significant strides in its development, economic growth, and the well-being of its people in defending its fundamental cause against conspiracy and separatism, all the while instigated and propagated by its supposed “brotherly neighbor.”
* Taieb Dekkar is a journalist and writer