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WASHINGTON — Algeria's top diplomat said he's "very much satisfied" with the Biden administration's policy toward Western Sahara, even as the administration chose not to rescind former President Donald Trump's recognition of Moroccan sovereignty.
As part of efforts to normalize ties between Morocco and Israel, the Trump administration in December 2020 delivered a long-sought diplomatic win to Rabat by formally recognizing its decades-old territorial claim to Western Sahara.
The State Department says there has been no change since in US policy on Western Sahara, where the Algeria-backed Polisario Front rebel movement is seeking independence from Morocco, which annexed the former Spanish colony in 1975 and now exercises de facto control over nearly 80% of it.
But Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf, who spoke with Al-Monitor following his meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior US officials last week, said the Biden administration’s recent statements on Western Sahara indicate a more favorable position than under Trump.
“The Biden administration has not at all endorsed the Trump decision,” Attaf said in an Aug. 9 interview. "On the contrary, they are taking the distance explicitly from the position expressed by President Trump.”
In an attempt to stake out a middle ground, the Biden administration has neither reversed Trump's proclamation, as Algeria had hoped, nor has it followed through on the former president’s pledge to Morocco that it would open a consulate in Western Sahara.
Seeking a more neutral position, the Biden administration has referred to Morocco’s proposal to grant Western Sahara limited autonomy under its sovereignty as “one of the many potential approaches” to resolving the conflict. The language is a subtle departure from the Trump administration’s declaration that the Moroccan autonomy plan was “the only basis for a just and lasting solution” to the dispute.
The Polisario Front, which renewed armed conflict in 2020, has rejected Morocco's plan in favor of a referendum on self-determination for the Sahrawi people, as promised following the 1991 UN-mediated cease-fire.
Attaf pointed to the US statement issued after his meeting with Blinken, in which the secretary “reiterated full support” for the work of the UN envoy on Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, "as he consults intensively with all concerned to achieve a political solution."
“That means that you do not recognize that the territory is Moroccan,” Attaf said. “If you recognize it, you would not ask for an additional endeavor to find the solution.”
"What we are indeed asking this administration for is a very specific thing: to contribute to reviving the peace process, and this is precisely what it is doing through calls like this," he said.
*'Turning point' in Algeria-US relations
Algeria and the United States cooperate closely on counterterrorism, but their foreign policies have often diverged, including over Russia's war in Ukraine, Algeria's engagement with Syria's isolated government and its opposition to Israel's normalization with the Arab world. Relations between Algiers and Washington hit a low following Trump's Western Sahara move.
But Attaf, who is serving in his second stint as Algeria’s chief diplomat after holding the post from 1996 to 1999, said US-Algerian ties are "at a turning point."
"We are working to strengthen the Algerian-American friendship," Attaf said. "You cannot imagine the substance that these relations have gained during the last two years in terms of political dialogue."
Attaf pointed to the presence of American oil and gas companies in Algeria as a sign of improved US ties. In early June, Algeria's energy minister said ExxonMobil and Chevron were close to finalizing agreements to drill in the gas-rich country.
“Algeria is gaining in the eyes, not only of the administration, but also in the American business community,” Attaf said. “This is the best signal that you can have.”
*China relations in 'national interest'
As Algeria looks to bolster ties with the United States, it is also deepening cooperation with US adversary China. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune visited the country in mid-July, where he signed nearly 20 agreements with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and said Algeria was ready to play “an active part” in the Belt and Road project. Algerian imports from China are also on the rise, going from $400 million in 2003 to $8 billion in 2022.
Attaf defended Algeria's relations with China, whose claim over Taiwan it backs, and other "partners who are ready to respond to our needs."
“If it is China, it is China. If it is Russia, it is Russia. If it is the United States, it is the United States. The most important thing is our national interest,” he said.
Beijing and Moscow both welcomed gas-rich Algeria's application to join the BRICS group of major emerging economies, which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Algeria has also submitted a request to become a shareholder member of the BRICS-formed New Development Bank, which Attaf said is "proceeding very smoothly."
*Russia ties 'not exclusive'
"Our relations with Russia are not exclusive of all the relations of quality [and] of friendship with other countries," Attaf said, dismissing Western criticism over Algeria’s close ties to Moscow, where Tebboune paid a three-day visit in June aimed at strengthening the two countries’ “friendship and cooperation.”
“Our American friends understand the relationship that has been there for the last 60 years — we have been buying military equipment from Russia for the last 60 years — cannot be abolished immediately,” Attaf said.
Moscow’s ties with Algiers stretch back to the 1960s, when the Soviet Union became the country’s top weapons supplier following its independence from France. Today, Russia supplies roughly 80% of Algeria's weapons.
Last year, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers called for sanctions in accordance with the so-called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act over reports that Algeria was negotiating a multibillion-dollar deal for Sukhoi stealth aircraft and other Russian arms supplies.
“Our essential needs for our security and defense concerns, we cannot compromise on that,” Attaf said. “I don't believe that any country — I will not name them, you know them — buying more Russian military equipment have ceased to do that just because of the sanctions.”
“The dialogue on defense and security issues, diversification of our military equipment is being dealt with very quietly with our American partners, and it is proceeding normally,” Attaf said.
*Military intervention in Niger will 'end in failure'
“We condemn the coup and we have called for the constitutional and democratic order to be restored,” Attaf said of Algeria’s southern neighbor, adding “military intervention will end with failure.”
The West African bloc known as the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) has threatened to intervene militarily if Niger’s coup leaders don’t restore President Mohamed Bazoum, who was ousted in late July by members of his presidential guard.
"Solving this problem through military intervention is a very difficult option to contemplate, and the success is far from being guaranteed," Attaf said.
Niger’s democratically elected president remains under house arrest with his family in the capital, Niamey. Following an emergency summit last week, ECOWAS said it ordered the deployment of a “standby force” in an effort to reinstate Bazoum.
“I believe that there are not that many countries that support the military dimension as a first choice,” Attaf said. “All of us agree on the fact that we should give time to a political and diplomatic solution.”
Attaf warned of “huge consequences” should a wider conflict erupt in Niger, including the potential for regional militant groups to take advantage of the instability, a loss of oil revenue for state-owned company Sonatrach and waves of migration on Algeria’s doorstep.
*Ukraine war balancing act
Algeria, which espouses an independent and nonaligned foreign policy, has faced Western pressure to abandon its professed neutral stance toward Russia's war in Ukraine. Algiers has sought a balance, declining to participate in Western sanctions against its close strategic partner while serving as an alternative natural gas supplier for European countries desperate to reduce their reliance on Russian hydrocarbons.
Algeria abstained from a UN General Assembly resolution in February calling for "a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine" in line with the UN charter. Attaf said Algeria, which will hold a nonpermanent seat in the Security Council in 2024, supports "a political solution within the United Nations."
"How this is being done is another matter. Nobody is proposing something concrete to deal with the Ukrainian crisis politically, at least as far as we're concerned," the foreign minister said, adding that Algeria has offered to mediate.
"Russia has readily accepted our offer. We are still working to convince Ukraine to respond to that,” Attaf said. “They are not in the mood of entering a negotiation, unless it is based on their own vision of the solution.”
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