Algeria’s diplomatic fiasco under Attaf
Algeria’s impulsive military-guided diplomacy has sown wind and reaped whirlwind. The newly appointed foreign minister Ahmed Attaf has returned empty handed from Germany and Serbia to mention but a few trips in which he failed to win support for the separatist polisario front.
Soon after his visit to Germany and Serbia where he met their foreign ministers, the two European countries expressed a clear-cut position in support of Morocco’s autonomy plan for the Sahara and the UN security council resolutions.
Attaf’s visit to Belgrade and later to Berlin last month will be remembered however for his blunders when he rejected separatism in Serbia and supported it in Morocco or when he said Algeria seeks to cooperate with Germany on “green oxygen”!
The latest slap to the Algerian regime came from its main client Italy which also supported earlier this month Morocco’s efforts as part of the UN process to settle the Sahara issue.
As Algeria’s ties with France, Spain and other western powers worsen, Algeria has chosen the camp of autocracies starting with Tebboune’s visit to Moscow, support for bloody Bachar Al Assad, and the recent visit by Attaf to Tehran.
The visit by Tebboune to Moscow and his awkward praise of Putin whom he called “a friend of whole of humanity” as well as his comments to join a bloc that breaks away with Euro and the dollar will have consequences for oil and gas dependent Algeria.
Yet, probably the most resounding news that should have led Algiers to come to terms with its real weight in international relations is BRICS snubbing its candidacy!
An Indian paper citing a senior official said Algeria is not even among the five shortlisted countries to join the grouping of the world’s fastly growing economies.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are among the shortlisted together with Indonesia and Argentina, which all dwarf Algeria in terms of GDP.
Algeria’s diplomacy is limited by its hostility to Morocco and remains bogged down in a cold-war context that no longer exists.
As Algeria’s economic outlook worsens with its main clients steadily gearing to renewables, Algeria continues to distract its people by diplomatically punching above its weight receiving blows on the Sahara issue.
Attaf is but a civilian puppet whose strings are pulled by a military junta that made hostility to Morocco and supporting separatism a driver of all its actions.
