Kais Saied, the Tunisian president, invited his Algerian counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune and the chairman of the Libyan presidential council Mohamed al-Menfi to participate in
“a first consultative meeting between the leaders of the three brotherly countries”.
Neither Morocco nor Mauritania were invited to this event, which foreshadows the formation of an entity on a Maghreb scale.
The principle
of “a tripartite Maghreb meeting”
, organized every three months, was decided by the three leaders when they met on the sidelines of a summit on gas in Algiers at the beginning of March. In a press release, the three countries stressed
“the need to unify and intensify efforts to meet economic and security challenges, in the service of the interests”
of their peoples.
Moroccan media like Hespress and Le360 have accused Algeria of wanting to
“form a Maghreb alliance against Morocco”
, its great regional rival, and denounced a
“maneuver intended to make people believe that Algeria is not isolated in its neighborhood »
.
“This bloc is not directed against any other state”
For his part, the head of Algerian diplomacy Ahmed Attaf defended these initiatives as intended to fill a void, while the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA), created 35 years ago, is
"in a coma"
, which she
“has no activity”
. Algerian President Tebboune assured during a television interview in early April that
“this bloc is not directed against any other state”
and that
“the door is open to the countries of the region”
and
“to our neighbors to the West”
(the Morocco).
The UMA was founded in Marrakech in 1989 with the ambition of strengthening political and economic ties between Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Tunisia and Libya on the model of the European Community, future European Union. After a promising start, recurring tensions between Rabat and Algiers caused an impasse and the last summit between leaders dates back to 1994.
One of the most conflicting issues between Morocco and Algeria is that of Western Sahara. This territory, rich in mineral resources and with waters full of fish, is controlled mainly by Morocco but claimed by the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria. The UN considers it a
“non-self-governing territory”
.