After Madrid reversed decades of neutrality in the Western Sahara dispute, Algeria announced it immediately suspended a two-decades-old friendship treaty with Spain.
Following a meeting for the country’s high council of security headed by President Abdelmajid Tebboune, a statement late on Wednesday by the Algerian presidency said, “Algeria has decided the immediate suspension of the Treaty of Friendship, good neighborliness and cooperation that it concluded with Spain.”
The recent Spanish position regarding the Western Sahara dispute contradicts its legal, moral and political obligations toward the territory as being a former Spanish colony, the Algerian statement said.
The statement added, “This attitude of the Spanish government is a violation of the international legality that its status as an administering power imposes on it and of the efforts made by the United Nations and the new personal envoy of the Secretary-General, contributing directly to the deterioration of the situation in Western Sahara and the region.”
Algeria’s move came in light of Spain’s change of stance in March to publicly recognize Morocco’s autonomy plan for the disputed territory.
Algeria’s decision on Wednesday to “immediately” suspend the two-decade-old friendship and cooperation treaty with Spain was seen as “regretful” by the latter.
