Rabat stresses Morocco’s ambassador to Algiers has only been recalled for consultations and not withdrawn.
Middle East Online
Determined to defend Morocco sovereignty
RABAT – Morocco’s ambassador to Algiers is to resume work on Monday, after having been recalled in a spat over Moroccan Sahara, a senior Moroccan official said.
“The ambassador has arrived in Algeria and he will resume his duties tomorrow (Monday),” the official said on Sunday, asking not to be named.
He stressed the envoy had only been recalled for consultations and not withdrawn. Morocco “will always take measures against those who try to touch its territorial integrity,” he said.
On an incident last week when a Moroccan protester tore down the flag from Algeria’s consulate in Casablanca, he said the authorities had been “firm” and the perpetrator was under arrest.
Friday’s incident in Morocco’s economic capital sparked an angry protest from Algiers.
Dozens of people had gathered outside the consulate in Morocco’s economic capital to protest over comments by Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Moroccan Sahara.
In a speech read out in Bouteflika’s name at a meeting in Abuja, he said an international mechanism to monitor human rights in Western Sahara was needed “more than ever.”
Bouteflika referred to “massive and systematic human rights violations that take place inside the occupied territories to suppress the peaceful struggle” of the Sahrawi people.
The row is the latest between the North African neighbours whose decades-old rivalry centres on Moroccan Sahara, annexed in 1975.
Rabat has proposed broad autonomy for the phosphate-rich territory under its sovereignty. This is rejected by the pro-independence Polisario Front, which is based in Algeria.
