Washington Warns Its Citizens Against Travel To “Remote Areas” In Algeria

The United States Department of State has renewed its caution to prospective US travelers heading to Algeria.

Wednesday’s travel warning replaces that originally posted on December 13, 2016 explained the US government’s website.

The travel warning states at the top: Quote:“The Department of State continues to warn U.S. citizens against travel to remote areas of Algeria due to the threat of terrorist attacks and kidnapping”, unquote.

The travel warning pointed out that “the turbulent country has diminished more recently. However, there is still a very real prospect for violence in an around the major metropolitan areas”.

The Department of State explains terrorists have unfortunately had a wide range as to the places they have enacted their violence: areas both south and east of Algiers (Blida, Boumerdes, Tizi Ouzou, Bouira and Bejaia), just outside of Constantine, Tebessa and near the Tunisian border.

On the other hand, there are specifics noted by the US website. These include avoiding travel near the eastern and southern border, travel over the Sahara, and meandering too far away from major highways.

 In a reaction, The Algerian Foreign Affairs Ministry has responded to the renewed US travel warning by recalling that “the American warning is still looking at the security situation in Algeria with a distorted and outdated stance that does not reflect at all the reality in Algeria itself” … 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in this regard stressed that the security of Algeria has been settled permanently thanks to the successful policy of national reconciliation initiated by the President of the Republic Mr. Abdelaziz Bouteflika and owing to the high price paid by Algerians to get rid of the scourge of terrorism, as well as thanks to the ongoing vigilance and full enlisting of the valiant National People’s Army and all the other security bodies in the entire national territory. “

Meanwhile, Algeria has agreed to accredit Mr. John Desrocher  as the United States new Ambassador to Algeria, the foreign affairs ministry said on Wednesday. Mr. John Desrocher will thus succeed Ambassador Joan Polaschik after the end of her three-year term.