Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune delivered a speech on Wednesday at the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence, in the presence of army commanders, and as usual he made sure to mention the Sahara conflict, reiterating his country's support for the Polisario Front. Tebboune also made sure to equate the Palestinian issue with the Sahara conflict, speaking of Algeria's «firm and unconditional commitment to just causes, especially the Palestinian cause and the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination». «The Sahrawi people must hold a referendum, whether on independence or other choices, it is the Sahrawi people who decide, and no one decides on their behalf, there are young people born in the camps who are 45 years old now», Tebboune added. «The United Nations must play its role, there is a people whose fate is still on the table of the UN Decolonisation Committee, so decolonisation must be accelerated, we will never abandon the Sahrawi people», he added. Tebboune and various Algerian officials are keen to express their «permanent» support for the Polisario Front, even though they maintain that their country is not a party to the conflict and is only an «observer state», refusing to enter into direct negotiations with Morocco and rejecting the invitation to participate in the roundtables issued by the Security Council resolution.
