Saudi Interior Minister Starts a Visit to Algeria

Visits continue between officials in Algeria and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and this time it was the turn of the Saudi Interior Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who arrived Monday in Algiers on an official visit.

The Saudi Minister of Interior was received by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, at the Presidency of the Republic. The meeting was attended by the Chief of Staff at the Presidency of the Republic, Abdelaziz Khellaf, and the Minister of Interior, Local Communities and Urban Development, Brahim Merad, but without reference to the agenda of this visit, which is likely to prepare for the visit of the Crown Prince, Mohammed ben Salmane.

The Algerian-Saudi relations constitute one of the successful examples of Arab-Arab relations. Although there is some discrepancy in dealing with some Arab and regional issues, these relations remained at certain levels of stability.

The visit of the Saudi Foreign Minister to Algeria is the second of its kind in half a year, as the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Abdullah bin Farhan Al Saud, was previously received in Algeria by his counterpart Ramtane Lamamra, a visit that witnessed the Saudi side declaring its support for Algeria in its endeavours aiming to obtain a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council, for the period between 2024 and 2025 in the elections to be held within the framework of the 77th session of next June’s General Assembly.

President Tebboune landed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on his first visit abroad after he was elected President of the Republic in December 2019, which is another factor that enhances the strength of relations between Algeria and Riyadh, because such considerations have more than one meaning.

During his attendance at the opening celebrations of the Qatar 2022 World Cup in Doha, President Tebboune was observed exchanging conversations comfortably with the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed ben Salmane, which would dispel the malicious rumours that spoke of a silent diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

These rumours linked the alleged crisis to the Saudi Crown Prince’s retraction of an unannounced visit to Algeria at the end of last August, which challenges the credibility of these leaks because visits of this level are usually announced in advance, and preparations are being made for them at the highest level, considering the weight of the Saudi crown prince in the decision-making sources in his country.

It was later revealed that these leaks originated from social media and were managed by the E-flies of the Moroccan Makhzen regime linked to the palace and its intelligence services, to try to poison relations between Algeria and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, by marketing false news that Algeria had rejected fake Saudi mediation.

The involvement of the Makhzen regime in this miserable plot was revealed, immediately after the end of the visit of the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, to Algeria in May 2022, so that Rabat did not digest the Saudi authorities’ declaration of their support for Algeria to obtain a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council. On the other hand, he (the Saudi prince) ignored any talk about mediation, noting that the famous phrase made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the National Community Abroad, Ramtane Lamamra, in which he denied the existence of mediation, “neither yesterday nor today nor tomorrow,” was in the presence of the Saudi minister, who unjustly carried the file mediation, as President Tebboune said recently about the Jordanian monarch, who in turn unjustly carried the guise of mediation as well.