PREVIEW
A 48-hour ultimatum and years of proxy fights over Western Sahara and the Sahel end in another Maghreb diplomatic freeze
Algeria's foreign ministry gave the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador two days to leave after accusing Abu Dhabi of 'provocative and hostile actions,' closing its skies to Emirati aircraft from 12 September.
The rupture, Algeria's second such break after Morocco in 2021, underlines how deeply the Abraham Accords with Israel and rival patronage networks in the Sahel have worsened regional relations. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has described regional security and the role of the UAE-Morocco pacts in apocalyptic terms.
‘Wherever they [UAE] set foot, blood flows,’ said Tebboune in on television in July. ‘We want them to stay away, so that blood does not flow in our country,’ he added.
Algiers says it acted after it claimed on 10 September that it had ‘exhausted all means of preserving bilateral relations’. Officials have not cited more precise details for severing relations with the UAE. The enmity between the two countries had been building for much of this year. Algiers has closed its airspace to UAE-registered civilian and military aircraft, effective from 12 September.
Abu Dhabi has emerged as a key ally of Algeria’s neighbour, Morocco. Under the United States-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020 saw Morocco and the UAE recognise Israel (AC Vol 61 No 25, King reaps Saharan dividend) the two states have coordinated strategy more closely in the region.
Algeria opposes normalisation with Israel and used its hosting of an Arab League summit in 2022 to affirm its support for Palestine (Dispatches 8/11/22, Economic crises and Palestine dominate Algiers' hosting of Arab League summit), with mixed success.
The UAE supports Morocco’s claim to sovereignty over Western Sahara where it has a consulate, while Algeria backs the Sahrawi independence movement, led by the Polisario Front. The UAE, alongside Morocco, has also been boosting its ties with Sahelian governments in recent years. They were trying to capitalise on the froideur between the junta in Mali and Tebboune’s government in Algiers.
Some behind the scenes diplomacy by Algeria, which still wields great influence in the Sahel, has reset relations with Bamako. And during last month’s failed putsch in Niger, the Tebboune government made much of its military help for General Abdourahamane Tiani’s junta, along Russian fighters.
Algeria’s move to end relations appears to have surprised the UAE. Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic advisor to the UAE president, wrote on X that diplomatic relations should not be based on ‘riddles and signals that require decoding’.
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