Spanish PM’s Meeting with Polisario Leader Sparks Diplomatic Tensions with Morocco

Some Spanish politicians and media take a dim view of the meeting between Pedro Sánchez and Brahim Ghali. Members of the Spanish Popular Party (PP) perceive this meeting as a provocation on the part of the head of the Spanish government, who is mismanaging the crisis with Morocco. After questioning its usefulness, some Spanish media believe that this meeting is a "hasty initiative, without any interest, which only contributes to further aggravating the crisis between Spain and Morocco," reports Al Ahdath Al Maghribia. According to them, this "flagrant" meeting confirms "the state of wandering that the Spanish government is going through between statements that portend the end of the crisis and behaviors that exacerbate it".

The admission in April 2021 of the Polisario leader under the borrowed name of Mohamed Ben Battouche, of Algerian nationality, in a hospital in Logroño, not far from Zaragoza, had provoked tensions between Madrid and Rabat. Tensions that persist in 2022.