Moroccan Monarch Confirms His Keenness To “Upgrade” Relations With Algeria

Morocco’s King Mohamed VI stressed his “keen interest” in continuing to work with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to “consolidate relations of cooperation and good-neighborliness between the two countries and to enhance them to the legitimate aspirations of the two peoples for a smooth Maghrebian integration”.
The Moroccan Monarch expressed on Thursday to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on the occasion of Algeria’s celebration of independence and youth day coinciding with July 5th, “his most sincere congratulations and wishes of health, well-being and happiness for the brotherly people of Algeria, hoping by the same token that they’ll achieve further gains on the path of progress and prosperity under President Bouteflika’s leadership.”
King Mohamed VI said that “Algeria’s celebration of this anniversary is an opportunity to bring together the two peoples who share common historical and cultural elements and who look forward to a common future.”
Observers however note that the statements made by Moroccan King Mohamed VI are in utter contradiction with the general policy he is pursuing on the ground regarding Algeria, which is consistently the target of low-down accusations from the official Moroccan side.
The last of these unacceptable accusations came from the Moroccan foreign minister, Nasser Bourita, recently from Nouakchott, Mauritania outside the AU summit, where he claimed that “Algeria is an active protagonist In the case of Western Sahara and that the solution to the conflict is in Algeria’s hands, adding that the latter is behind the failure to build the Arab Maghreb Union”, as he put it.
Bourita claimed that Algeria “shelters, finances and mobilizes its diplomatic bodies to defend the Polisario Front of Western Sahara and that its leaders are ruling the country with the mentality of the cold war.”
He also argued that the severed relations with Iran were based on “indications of an attempt to harm Morocco’s supreme interests, security and stability.”
The relations between Morocco and Algeria are described as “cold” and even “convulsive”.
In May 2018, Algeria summoned the Moroccan Ambassador posted in Algiers to protest against what the authorities considered “indirect provocations” in the wake of the announcement by Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita of his country’s decision to break off diplomatic relations with Iran, allegedly because of “the military training provided by elements of the Hezbollah Movement to the Sahrawi Army, through an Iranian diplomat posted in Algeria”.