On the Sahara issue, the Algerian president has once again gone off track. Abdelmadjid Tebboune claimed, during a speech delivered on Thursday, April 24, in Béchar, that Spain had reconsidered its support for the Moroccan autonomy plan for the Sahara. "Spain made a mistake" on this matter "and has retracted," he declared without flinching. "They never imagined that Algeria could one day economically force them to reconsider their positions," Tebboune asserted, facing an audience that seemed unconvinced, as evidenced by the sparse applause that followed. "They (the Spaniards) lost 7 billion dollars a year with us and ended up retracting," he added. However, on Thursday, April 17, in Madrid, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, reaffirmed Spain's support for the autonomy solution proposed by Morocco since 2007 to resolve the Sahara issue. A stance that was immediately denounced by the Polisario. "The representation of the Polisario Front in Spain expresses its firmest condemnation of the remarks made by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs during today's statement at the ministry's headquarters, as part of a meeting with his Moroccan counterpart," declared Abdellah Arabi in a communiqué. The Polisario's allies within Sumar also criticized Albares' remarks. The Algerian president seems to be the only one interpreting reality differently. Abdelmadjid Tebboune is not new to making erroneous statements regarding Spain's approach to the Sahara issue. On September 22, 2022, during a public meeting with governors, he had already announced that Madrid "has begun to revert to the European decision on the Western Sahara issue." Two days after the Algerian president's statements, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, clarified that on the Sahara issue "Spain's position is clearly expressed in the Hispano-Moroccan Joint Declaration of April 7. There is not the slightest doubt about this." To recall, in this communiqué published following the talks between King Mohammed VI and Pedro Sanchez, Spain describes "the Moroccan autonomy initiative, presented in 2007, as the most serious, realistic, and credible basis for resolving this dispute."
