On the occasion of his three-day state visit to Turkey (from May 15 to 17), the President of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune reaffirmed indirect and very clear words, Algeria’s neutrality vis-à-vis -living with what is happening in the world.
During a meeting with representatives of the Algerian community established in Turkey, the Head of State forcefully reiterated the principle of non-alignment which is the basis of Algeria’s foreign policy even before it accedes to independence.
“Russia and the United States are our friends”
“Our policy is non-alignment and we are not going to give it up,” said President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, and despite the historical relations that bind it with Russia, Algeria has managed to remain equidistant from the belligerents. At the end of March, she received the visit of the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, followed on May 10 by that of the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov.
“Russia and the United States are our friends, everyone else is our friends except the one we have a problem with because of Palestine. Whoever wants to judge us, let him do it,” said Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
“We are trying as best we can to reinvigorate the Non-Aligned Movement. We see where the world is heading. Regardless of the number of poles, we are equidistant from all,” he insisted, before concluding: “Our commercial interests work with everyone, but when it comes to political interests and stability, we look first and foremost at our interests, the interests of the Algerian people.”
On May 11, Lieutenant General Said Chanegriha, Chief of Staff of the ANP also reaffirmed Algeria’s neutrality vis-à-vis international conflicts, when he received a senior official of NATO. “At the international level, Algeria continues to adopt a policy of neutrality”, he said, adding that our country “takes care to exclude itself from the tensions which oppose the different parties” in a marked international context by the war in Ukraine and Western economic sanctions against Russia.
