Qatar ‘open to mediate’ between Algeria and Morocco

Qatar is open to any official request to mediate between Algeria and Morocco and try to heal the rift between the neighbouring North African countries, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Doha said on Tuesday. Majed Al-Ansari made his comment in response to a question from the Arabic-language daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi about Qatar’s foreign policy.

The advisor to Qatar’s prime minister and minister of foreign affairs added that Qatar’s Emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, received two letters last week, one from Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and the other from Algerian President Abdel Majid Tebboune. 

Al-Ansari explained that Qatar’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Sultan Bin Saad Al-Muraikhi, was handed Tebboune’s letter during a meeting with the Charge d’Affaires in the Algerian Embassy in Qatar, Amirouche Rakh, last Thursday. The letter from the Moroccan monarch was handed over two days earlier to Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Thani during a meeting at his office with Morocco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Expatriates, Nasser Bourita.

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The letters pertained to close bilateral relations and ways to support and enhance them. Asked if they contained details of a possible role for Doha in bridging the gap between Algeria and Morocco, Al-Ansari said that “inter-Arab relations must be based on mutual understandings.” 

He stressed that Doha is committed to playing any role that is required of it or that it can achieve within the framework of such a vision. “There is no doubt that healing the rift between [Morocco and Algeria] represents a major concern of the State of Qatar,” he added.