Algeria: The largest Islamic party is ‘ready’ to contribute to ending the crisis with Morocco

The Head of the Movement of Society for Peace, (the largest Islamist party in Algeria), Abderrazak Makri, expressed on Tuesday, his party’s readiness to contribute to resolving his country’s crisis with its neighbour, Morocco, in the event that it retreats from “supporting of the separatists and normalisation with Israel”, as he put it.

This came in a statement by Makri, published on his Facebook page, commenting on the announcement by the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, on Saturday, about his aspiration to work with the Algerian Presidency to establish normal relations between the two brotherly peoples.

Makri added that “the statements made by the Moroccan King are good, unless there is what contradicts them.”

“The one Moroccan and Algerian society could have been involved in contributing to overcome the difficulties and to help the officials for rapprochement if the Moroccan authorities had not violated all that,” Makri added.

He considered that “what has concluded” the chances of ending the crisis was “the official (Moroccan) discourse that supports separatist parties affiliated to external powers, which hate the linguistic and ideological invariants of the homeland and threatening the stability and unity of our country”, in reference to the “Movement for the self-determination of Kabylie” operating in France.

READ: Morocco king calls to restore ties with ‘brotherly’ Algeria

He added that the second reason is “normalisation with the Zionist entity (Israel), betrayal of the Palestinian cause, bringing the enemy geographically far from us to our borders with its spies, weapons and malicious corrupt schemes, and threatening us directly from Moroccan lands.”

In December 2020, Morocco signed an agreement to resume official relations with Israel, while Algeria rejects normalisation and demands that the Palestinian people obtain their rights, especially the establishment of their independent State, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Makri called on the Moroccan authorities to “refrain from supporting the separatists and normalisation”. He said: “If this happens, we will all fulfil our duty to contribute to solving our bilateral problems and to seek to attain the dream of the Maghreb, whatever the difficulties.”

Until 16:00 GMT, the Algerian authorities did not issue any comment on the statements of the King of Morocco. However, the Algerian Echorouk newspaper (private) quoted, on Sunday, an official source, who it described as close to the file, as saying that “we cannot comment on nothing.”

In August 2021, Algeria severed its relations with Morocco because of what it described as a “continuous hostile campaign against it”; then, it banned Moroccan flights over its airspace and the gas pipeline contract passing through Morocco to Spain was not renewed.