In this new episode of “La Khayma Le360”, broadcast from Laâyoune, it is a question of returning to Spain’s firm response to the declarations of the Algerian president, going through the pitiful clarification of the Algerian regime in the face of the dry reframing of Madrid and Algeria’s threats to cut gas supplies to Spanish customers.
In reaction to the Algerian president’s remarks with regard to Spain and his new position of support for the Moroccan autonomy plan for the Sahara, Jose Manuel Albares did not hide his annoyance. For the head of Spanish diplomacy, the Algerian approach is totally “sterile”.
Abdelmadjid Tebboune, in an interview granted on Saturday April 23, 2022 to two media, once again protested against Madrid’s recent position vis-à-vis the Sahara issue. Spain’s new attitude has been described as “morally and historically unacceptable”.
Two days later, the head of Spanish diplomacy reframed Algerian power: “I am not going to fuel sterile controversies, but Spain has taken a sovereign decision within the framework of international law and there is nothing ‘other to add,’ he said on the radio Zero Wave.
Not a day goes by without the Algerian power revealing its true nature: it is the main actor in the conflict in the Moroccan Sahara, going so far as to hide the Polisario, which now finds itself playing an episodic role.
After having suffered a severe reframing from Madrid, the Algerian regime therefore tried to provide clarifications. Late in the evening of Tuesday April 26, 2022, the official Algerian agency APS released a dispatch, quoting mysterious “observers”, and stating that “the President of the Republic, who has always maintained that Algeria is not engaged in the conflict in Western Sahara, clarified Algeria’s position vis-à-vis Spain by reaffirming the close ties between the two countries”.
This, “while regretting the brand new position of the head of government which can in no way be that of the Spanish people, and even less that of King Felipe VI, who has never been singled out by the head of the Algerian State, on the contrary”.
These “observers” tried to qualify the attack formulated against Spain by Abdelmadjid Tebboune. However, the Algerian regime did not wait for Tebboune’s interview to launch hostilities against Spain. As early as March 19, Algiers had recalled its ambassador to Madrid. An attitude to which the northern neighbor had opposed a legitimate disdain.
In addition, Algeria takes a dim view of the energy partnership forged between the Kingdom and Spain, aimed at reversing the flows of the Maghreb-Europe Gas Pipeline (GME). In a new gesture of hostility towards Morocco, the Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines has threatened to cut off its gas deliveries to Spanish customers.
In a press release, relayed by the country’s press agency, APS, Mohamed Arkab, Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines, indicated that he had been informed “today by electronic message, by his Spanish counterpart, Teresa Ribera , of Spain’s decision to authorize the operation, in reverse flow, of the Maghreb Europe Gas Pipeline (GME)”.
The Algerian Ministry of Energy and Mines made a point of specifying in this respect that any routing of “quantities of Algerian natural gas delivered to Spain, whose destination is none other than that provided for in the contracts, will be considered as a breach of the contractual commitments, and consequently, could lead to the breach of the contract binding Sonatrach to its Spanish customers”.
The threatening tone of the press release from the Algerian ministry in fact expresses the feeling of hatred and the impotent rage that Algiers harbors towards Morocco, which has just signed its entry into the international liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. Indeed, the Kingdom is preparing to receive the first deliveries of gas which will supply the two power stations of Ain Beni Mathar and Tahaddart, which have been shut down since the breach of the contract between Morocco (ONEE) and Algeria (Sonatrach), end of October last.
Recall that at a press briefing on Friday April 15, the Minister of Energy Transition of the Kingdom of Morocco, Leila Benali, nevertheless insisted on the fact that Morocco was not going to obtain supplies from the Spanish market. nor with that of the EU. Spain will simply make its infrastructures available to the Kingdom (the Spanish section of the GME, regasification units) in order to transport the gas to Morocco by reversing the flows of the GME.
It is therefore with this new episode of “La Khayma Le360”, and more precisely from the famous district of Maâtallah, that we immerse ourselves in the latest developments relating to the Sahara issue and in the reactions of the Algerian regime, after the very recent Morocco’s diplomatic successes.