Algeria canceled Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares’s visit–one in which there had been plans to meet with the Algerian President and Foreign Minister–purportedly because Spain wanted only to discuss trade and to avoid the Sahara issue, reported Spanish media El Independiente.
The news outlet said that recent hopes for improved relations between Algeria and Spain have been dashed due to Spain’s recent actions aligning with Morocco on the Sahara dispute, as Spain considers Morocco’s Autonomy Plan “the most serious, credible, and realistic” solution.
It added that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s visit to Morocco and subsequent statements endorsing Moroccan projects in the Sahara have further strained relations.
Algeria believes that the Spanish Prime Minister’s backing of the autonomy proposal was prearranged, and that Sánchez consented to once more becoming mired in Morocco and Algeria’s animosity.
“Now Spanish-Algerian relations have entered a phase of cold peace, so to speak. Algerians feel betrayed twice,” a source told the newspaper. “The feeling among Algerian political leaders is that the Sánchez government has deceived them and that what seemed like a Spanish return to Spain’s traditional neutrality over the Sahara has turned into a pro-Moroccan position, autonomy.”
The source added that, as relations seemed to improve after the return of an Algerian ambassador to Madrid, the Spanish government chose to betray the Algerians for the second time.
The newspaper also mentioned that despite initial gestures of reconciliation–such as the return of the ambassador to Madrid, the resumption of trade and commercial flights between Algiers and Madrid, and the partial lifting of the ban on exports from Spain–these efforts have evaporated.
“As long as the Sánchez Government remains in power, relations will not improve. Sánchez’s speech at the UN last September generated some good hopes, but they have already disappeared,” the source added.