According to the first elements unveiled in the government’s action plan, President Tebboune has decided to create seven new leading diplomatic posts. seven special envoys were, in fact, chosen, and among them, Amar Belani appointed a special envoy in charge of the Maghreb and Western Sahara.
This diplomat will have to manage the heavy file of what remains of relations between Algeria and Morocco. The mission is not at all foreign to him.
Amar Belani is known to have already held the post of spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what earned him his fame in the media sphere, are above all his statements made dUring his time as the ambassador of Algeria with Belgium, the European Union, and NATO. Statements often related to the question of Western Sahara and Morocco, which was worth to him to be always in conflict vis-à-vis the Shereefian Kingdom and its press.
A special envoy in charge of the Maghreb or Morocco?
To trust the Moroccan press, especially those close to the regime, Belani Amar is the number one public enemy of diplomatic relations between Algeria and Morocco. What had earned Belani this reputation are his firm, extreme and radical positions towards Morocco, especially with regard to the question of Western Sahara. His post in Brussels, where he spent six years, put him very close to the grounds of diplomatic struggles for the Saharawi cause.
Besides Western Sahara, Belani has never hesitated to attack Morocco concerning the Rif region. In 2017, the Algerian diplomat denounced “the ambiguity maintained by the European Union (EU) and its member states regarding the wave of repression and arbitrary arrests in Northern Morocco (Rif)”.
In 2021, following the note verbale from Omar Hillele, the Moroccan Ambassador, concerning the MAK, Amar Beleni did not mince his words. Despite the back engine displayed by the Makhzen, the Algerian diplomat indicates that such an act does not bind only the Moroccan Ambassador, but the king, as well as his government. For Belani, there is no doubt, this is a political position.
A few days after his harsh statements, removing any prospect of mediation between Algeria and Morocco, Belani was appointed special envoy in charge of the Maghreb and Western Sahara. an unambiguous gesture on the part of Algerian diplomacy.
