Algeria Condemns Guinea and Gabon for Opening Consulates in Western Sahara

"Algeria has taken note of the unilateral decisions of the governments of the Republic of Guinea and Gabon to open consular representations in Dakhla and Lâayoune, two occupied cities of Western Sahara," says a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE).

For Algiers, "these serious decisions which constitute a flagrant violation," "can in no way legitimize the colonization of these territories, nor call into question the inalienable and imprescriptible right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination, in accordance with the doctrine and practice consecrated by the United Nations and the African Union in this matter."

Likewise, these decisions, the ministry stresses, could "hinder the ongoing decolonization process." Moreover, they constitute "a serious attack" on the principle of solidarity that must prevail between the founding countries of the African Union and must guide their relations, particularly with regard to their necessary commitment to the defense, in all circumstances, of the rules and principles contained in the Constitutive Act of the African Union, concludes the MAE.