"Algeria is playing with fire"

In the eyes of Hassan Abdelkhalek, "the Algerian regime is playing with fire with regard to the establishment of what is called the ’Riffian National Party’, and the opening of a representation for it in the Algerian capital". Constituted in Belgium in September 2023, the Riffian National Party (PNR), described as a "group of separatists" in Morocco, now has an office in Poirson, Algeria. "The Algerian external intelligence has sponsored the establishment of what is called the ’Riffian National Party’ in Brussels last September, for which it has recruited some people without influence in the Rif region and known for their link with a former deputy accused of international drug trafficking (editor’s note: Saïd Chaou)", estimates the former ambassador, rejecting the allegations of Algerian diplomats that Abdelkarim El Khattabi was a defender of the creation of a "republic for the Rif". "These allegations are not consistent with historical and geographical facts, because Mohamed ben Abdelkarim El Khattabi was a unitary man who did not believe in the separation of the Rif region from its Moroccan fold," he stressed.

In an op-ed, the former Moroccan ambassador to Algeria, Hassan Abdelkhalek, mentioned the attempts to destabilize northern Morocco by Algeria. "In 2017, the Algerian military regime tried, in vain, through its external intelligence apparatus, to exploit the Rif movement by giving it a political dimension to serve its agenda aimed at weakening Morocco and striking its territorial unity, by financing the formation of committees in European countries to support the Rif movement and being behind the march in Brussels to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the proclamation of the so-called Rif Republic," he recalled. He added: "the Algerian regime has ordered its media to devote coverage to the creation of the so-called party and to welcome its leadership, and its intentions behind all these steps are nothing other than to provoke Morocco, and to seek agents who serve its obsession with weakening Morocco and promoting the separatist trend in the Moroccan Rif region".

The former Moroccan ambassador to Algeria also revealed "the contradiction of the Algerian regime in terms of financing and support as well as the opening of the headquarters of the Rif representation, compared to its consideration of the movement for the self-determination of the Kabylie region in May 2021 as a terrorist movement, by jailing a number of its members, which makes the Algerian regime lose all credibility". Stressing that "Morocco has repeatedly recorded the duplicity of the position of the Algerian regime in its treatment of the principle of the right to self-determination, as opposed to the continuity of Morocco’s adherence to the virtue of good neighborliness and non-interference in the internal affairs of Algeria, referring in this context to the Throne Speech of 2021," he notes that "the Algerian regime is now placing this region in the sights of its ambitions, using a group of people linked to a drug trafficker in its losing initiative to harm its firm and inalienable link with its united Morocco".

Abdelkhalek is convinced that "this condemned and reckless attempt to harm the territorial unity of Morocco in its north is doomed to fail, following the failure that has been pursuing the Algerian regime for more than 48 years in its conspiracy to strike the territorial unity of Morocco in its south".