It is hard to reach any solution to the Sahara issue because of Algeria’s “reluctance”, said, on Wednesday in Washington, the president of Maghreb Center, Tunisian Néjib Ayachi.
Ayachi added, during a conference held at Brookings Institute on “Elections and reforms in Morocco and Tunisia”, that failing to build a Maghreb has an exorbitant cost, with a deficit of 3% of GDP, according to the World Bank.
He deplored the fact that there is no real integration of the Maghreb Arab Union (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia), insisting that the sought-after integration is likely to put this regional grouping, which wields rich natural and human resources and enormous potential, on the right track.
For his part, Annouar Aboukhars, professor of international relations at McDaniel College in the state of Maryland, blamed the situation of impasse in the Sahara issue on Algeria.
He also deplored that the efforts to build a true commitment in negotiations to reach a solution to the Sahara issue and reopen Moroccan-Algerian land border have turned up nothing because of Algeria’s “intransigence.”
