Algeria’s Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra has revealed that his country has discontinued all diplomatic relations with Morocco due to ‘hostile actions’, following months of resurgent tensions between the North African rivals.
The countries have long accused one another of backing opposition movements as proxies, with Algeria’s support for separatists in the disputed region of Western Sahara a particular bone of contention for Morocco.
‘Algeria has decided to cut diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Morocco from today,’ Lamamra announced during a press conference.
‘History has shown… Morocco has never stopped carrying out hostile actions against Algeria,‘ he added.
There was no immediate reaction from Rabat to the announcement.
Algiers’s move came following a review of bilateral relations announced last week as it alleged Rabat was complicit in deadly forest fires that ravaged the country’s north.
Lamamra accused Morocco’s leaders of ‘responsibility for repeated crises’ and behaviour that has ‘led to conflict instead of integration’ in North Africa.
Africa Today News, New York recalls that late last month, Morocco’s King Mohamed VI deplored the tensions between the two countries and invited Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune “to make wisdom prevail” and ‘to work in unison for the development of relations’ between the two countries.
But Algeria’s forest fires, which broke out on August 9 amid a blistering heatwave, burned tens of thousands of hectares of forest and killed at least 90 people, including more than 30 soldiers, further stoking tensions.
While critics say Algerian authorities failed to prepare for the blazes, Tebboune declared most of the fires were of ‘criminal’ origin.
Algerian authorities have blamed the independence movement of the mainly Berber region of Kabylie extending along the Mediterranean coast east of the capital.
Algiers has accused Rabat of backing the separatists.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK