The USA has been monitoring Algeria’s peaceful nuclear programme since 1991

The United States has strenuously hindered the Algerian nuclear program since 1991, Washington has urged France to pressure Algeria via China, also called on Switzerland not to sell Algeria military industry equipment, specifically related to the nuclear field, and America set up special networks to spy on Algeria from neighboring Morocco.

Documents from the secret US archives, published by “Al-Jazeera” TV Channel on Thursday indicated that the Algerian nuclear program has caught attention of the US administration since 1991, despite the processing of secret relevant documents way back in 1988, but the file wasn’t dealt with at that time.

The spotlight was then riveted on the Algerian nuclear program through pictures taken by US spy satellites, of the Algerian reactor of Ain Ouassara in Djelfa province, and in the light of these pictures, the US administration issued the “state of alert”, and in an effort to thwart the Algerian nuclear programme, it used its ally France as a proxy in an undercover scuttling drive.

According to the American archival documents, and in view of the sensitive relationship between the Algerian and French sides, and its inability to pressure or process the file directly, the USA  got in touch with China, as the main partner in the Algerian nuclear program, through the Foreign Minister of France at that  time, Roland Dumas, who travelled to Beijing and stayed there for 24 hours on a special mission aimed patently at putting a spoke in the wheels of the budding Algerian nuclear program.

The documents also revealed that Roland Dumas’ Chinese counterpart had told him during a meeting in Beijing that his country worked with Algeria and Pakistan in the nuclear field, and that Algeria was fully committed to any controls by the International Atomic Energy Agency on this file.

The Chinese Minister also informed then his visiting French opposite number that Beijing was totally committed to the Treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, stressing that Chinese cooperation with Algeria does not exceed the realm of the peaceful use of nuclear energy.