While Algeria refuses any Arab mediation likely to put an end to tensions with Morocco, Noureddine Boukrouh, ex-Algerian minister, also political analyst, and author, believes that France could play a decisive role in unblocking the situation.
“France had the necessary weight to solve the problem of Western Sahara at its birth before it took on the complexity that characterizes it today where the bill for a solution will be heavier to pay than between the years 1975 and 1979. She didn’t, because she didn’t want a new state in the Maghreb,” Noureddine Boukrouh said in an interview.
According to him, it is very unlikely that the risk of war comes from one of the two countries which have nothing to gain but everything to lose. “However, in the light of the new balances and the struggles of geostrategic influences in the region, in particular between the United States and Israel, on the one hand, and Europe, including France, on the other, the risk of sliding into a military conflict is possible,” analyzes the political analyst.
For the former Algerian minister, France could play a decisive role in not only unblocking the situation but also resolving once and for all the conflict in the Sahara, which blocks the construction of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU). He will recall that the country of Emmanuel Macron “has a share of responsibility in what happened in Western Sahara between 1975 and 1979 where it was an actor, and consequently in the state of relations between Algeria and Morocco.”
“Having been involved, it could contribute to the search for a regional solution. A destabilized, ruined and at war, Maghreb will absolutely not benefit him,” concludes the analyst.
