Mauritanian Foreign Minister Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed held conversations with his Algerian and Moroccan counterparts Ramtane Lamamra and Nasser Bourita, respectively, on Maghreb issues.
The talks came during two separate phone calls that Ould Cheikh Ahmed had, late on Monday evening, with Lamamra and Bourita.
The two talks come after Lamamra announced the cut of Algeria’s diplomatic relations with its neighbor Morocco last Tuesday, as a result of what he described as “a series of hostile attitudes and tendencies.”
Meanwhile, Morocco announced its categorical rejection of the “false” justifications upon which Algeria based its decision to cut diplomatic relations with the Kingdom.
It is stated that Ould Cheikh Ahmed discussed bilateral relations and the Maghreb, as well as regional issues of common interest, with his Moroccan and Algerian counterparts, without providing further details.
On Thursday, Ould Cheikh Ahmed said that his country “aspires to overcome the diplomatic crisis between Algeria and Morocco, and to rebuild the Arab Maghreb Union.”
In a press conference in Nouakchott at the time, the Mauritanian FM pointed out that “the Arab Maghreb Union as a regional organization is currently paralyzed due to the crisis between Morocco and Algeria.”
The Union is a regional organization founded in 1989 in Marrakesh, Morocco, and consists of five countries located in the Maghreb region: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania.
Cheikh Ahmed added: “We are preoccupied with the current situation and do not want it to deteriorate further. Everything that affects the peoples of the Maghreb affects Mauritania.”
He continued: “Our ambition is to build the Maghreb and overcome the crisis that has occurred, and we are sure that no matter what the crises and no matter what they reach, there will be a solution to them.”
Relations between Algeria and Morocco have been blocked since the land border between the two countries closed in 1994, and due to the Western Sahara dispute between Rabat and the Polisario Front supported by Algiers.
