Algerian Foreign Minister: Arab joint forces' project has nothing to do with Yemen

Algerian Foreign Minister, Ramtane Lamamra, said on Wednesday that the recent Arab summit’s decision to form ‘a joint military force’ has nothing to do with the current situation in Yemen and Libya.

In an interview with the Algerian state radio, conducted by the Anadolu agency correspondent, Lamamra stated that ‘the joint Arab force is an idea that was launched by the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi a few months ago in isolation from any situation which has evolved afterwards in Yemen or Libya.’

The Algerian official added, ‘with regard to the Arab League, the issue, in our view, is to strengthen itself with a mechanism to combat terrorism, like The African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises (ACIRC) which was developed by the African Union earlier.’

The minister denied the existence of an Algerian reservation on the project, saying ‘Algeria has sought with its Egyptian and other Arab state brothers to make the proposal realistic, where it could be compared technically to the ACIRC at the African Union level, as we agreed that this proposal would be just an initiative at this stage that is subjected to a preliminary agreement, as a decision was made to conduct an in-depth study on the project.’

He added that such ‘amendments allowed the unification and consensus of the Arab parties’ on this subject,’ without revealing the content of the amendments made by his country to the project.

He pointed out that ‘such an in-depth study will be undertaken by high-level group of military and civilian experts under the supervision of the Armed Forces leaders of the Arab countries. The results of the study will be presented to the Arab Joint Defence Council, which includes the Defence Minister and the Foreign Affairs Minister, who will be presenting their findings and recommendations at the next summit.’

According to the head of the Algerian diplomacy, the philosophy of the project is based on a ‘voluntary and not mandatory participation, then each country invited to take part or support the formation of the force will determine the conditions of its contribution and participation’.