Algeria’s President Rejects Mediation in Diplomatic Rift with Morocco

"The executioner and the victim cannot be put on an equal footing. We have reacted to an aggression, constant since our independence in 1962, and of which we are not the origin," said the Algerian head of state in an interview with the national media. "We are a people who have known war and aspire to peace, but we will not tolerate being attacked," he added.

Last September, Algeria had, through the voice of its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ramtane Lamamra, stated that his country refused any Arab mediation, explaining that Algiers’ decision to break off diplomatic relations with Rabat was "sovereign, final and irreversible".

The day after Algeria announced the severance of its diplomatic relations with Morocco, Saudi Arabia had tried to play a mediation role between the two countries. In this sense, the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Faisal Ben Farhane, had announced having spoken by telephone with his Algerian and Moroccan counterparts.

Recently, Mauritania said it was ready to play the role of mediator between Rabat and Algiers, if the two parties so wish. "We are willing, if they (Morocco and Algeria, Ed.) were to ask us, to play a facilitating role," declared the Mauritanian President, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, in an interview with the French newspaper L’Opinion. A few weeks earlier, the Mauritanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, had assured that his country "is working calmly" to ease tensions between Algeria and Morocco.