Algerian Ambassador’s Return to Madrid Pushes Morocco to Recklessness

Algeria appointed a new ambassador to Madrid, more than six months after this position became vacant, in the wake of the diplomatic crisis caused by the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, following what the Algerian side considered an “unfriendly act,” about “deviation” that happened in the Spanish shift in position on the Western Sahara issue, which made it lose its neutrality, with its decision to support the plan for autonomy in Western Sahara that was pushed by the Moroccan regime.

On Thursday, November 16, 2023, the official Algerian Press Service quoted a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying; “the Spanish government approved the appointment of the diplomat, Abdelfattah Daghmoum, as Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria to the Kingdom of Spain,” which means the return of Algeria’s representation in Spain.

The return of the Algerian ambassador to Madrid marks the beginning of the return of bilateral relations to their normal course after they entered a stormy phase in the spring of last year, which led, in June 2022, to the suspension of the Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighborhood signed between Algeria and Madrid in 2002, by the Algerian side.

This new development does not seem to please the Moroccan regime, which usually views any improvement in Algeria’s relations with some countries on the northern shore of the Mediterranean as being directed against Moroccan interests, as has been the case for more than a year with France, a scene whose features are beginning to appear on the horizon between Rabat and Madrid, since the return of diplomatic normalization between Algeria and Spain.

In this regard, the Spanish “Europa Press” agency said that more than 500 migrants from sub-Saharan African countries were trying in separate groups to jump over the fence separating the Moroccan and Spanish borders. The agency explained that the Spanish border guards had activated a state of maximum alert at 6:30 am on Friday to confront this wave of African migrants wishing to cross the Spanish border.

According to the same source, the Spanish authorities resorted to closing the border on the other side of the double fence, which is 8.2 km long, immediately after discovering groups of African migrants approaching the border. The local and national Spanish police and the Red Cross were mobilized in preparation to confront any emergency.

Videos on social media showed scattered groups of African migrants running on a public road between cars towards Spanish territory, in a scene similar to what happened in May 2021, when the Moroccan regime allowed about ten thousand Moroccan and African migrants to cross the Spanish border, to pressurize the Spanish Prime Minister to change his position on the Western Sahara issue, which prompted Madrid to summon the Moroccan ambassador to Spain.

However, immediately after the Madrid government announced its support for the autonomy plan in Western Sahara, Rabat turned into a gendarme stationed at the fence of the occupied city of Melilla and did not hesitate to commit a horrific massacre against migrants, less than two months after the Sanchez government’s shift in decision regarding Western Sahara, and precisely in June 2022, when Moroccan border guards killed dozens and injured hundreds of African migrants, which was condemned by the European Union and even the United Nations.

These developments come after Rabat felt the beginning of the rug being pulled from under its feet, as the Spanish Prime Minister spoke at the United Nations twice, in September 2022 and in October 2023, and did not indicate at all support for the Moroccan autonomy plan, in exchange for his emphasis on a “just solution,” this position prompted the Moroccan elite to address its government about whether Madrid had retreated from its position in support of the Moroccan autonomy plan in Western Sahara.

Many things happened between Algeria and Spain out of sight and media reports indicated the presence of a senior Sahrawi official being treated in Spain, contrary to the wishes of the Moroccan regime, just as happened with Sahrawi President Brahim Ghali in the spring of 2022, and these are the matters that pushed the Moroccan regime to the brink of madness while witnessing the rapid collapse of what it built over months.