Algeria Will Again Send an Ambassador to Spain After 19-Month Diplomatic Crisis

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez
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Algeria Will Again Send an Ambassador to Spain After 19-Month Diplomatic Crisis

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez

A breakthrough in the strained relations between Algeria and Spain is looming after reports that Algiers plans to send a new ambassador to Madrid, ending a 19-month diplomatic crisis.

In March, Algeria recalled its ambassador from Madrid after the latter backed Morocco’s plan giving autonomy to the former Spanish colony to solve the Western Sahara conflict.

Senior Algerian political sources said the two countries are in the process of resolving their crisis, adding that their relations are about to return to normal.

Last year, Algeria decided to suspend foreign trade in products and services with Spain and it suspended a 20-year-old friendship treaty with Spain that committed the two sides to cooperation in controlling migration flows.

Algeria has already announced that it is only willing to resume foreign trade with Spain and restore the 20-year-old friendship treaty if Madrid again adopts a neutral stance towards the Sahara conflict.

The same sources did not clarify whether this condition had been fulfilled now that the two countries moved to restore their diplomatic relations.

Meanwhile, Spain’s El Confidencial newspaper wrote on Thursday that Algeria is ready to re-establishing full diplomatic relations with the European country 19 months after it has summoned Said Moussi, its ambassador to Spain, back for consultations over Madrid's comments on Western Sahara.

Two months after this decision, Algeria has selected Moussi as its new ambassador to France, keeping the post of ambassador in Madrid vacant.

But in recent days, the Algerian authorities have announced some reshuffle in the diplomatic corps, most notably the appointment of former foreign minister Sabri Boukadoum as ambassador to Washington.

As part of this new diplomatic rearrangement, sources said former ambassador to Guinea, Abdel Fattah Daghmoum, has been appointed as the new ambassador to Madrid.

Head of Algerian-Spanish Circle of Commerce and Industry (CCIAE) Djamal Eddine Bouabdallah told media outlets that the breakthrough in Spanish-Algerian relations is due to contacts made by delegations of the two countries on the sidelines of their participation in the meetings of UN General Assembly in New York last September.

He said a gradual restoration of relations between the two countries is on the way, adding that several factors have contributed positively to this progress.

Government reports said that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez' speech at the United Nations on September 22 was a milestone for Algeria, and “a significant change of Madrid's last position on the Sahara issue.”

Sanchez said his country supports a “mutually acceptable political solution” regarding Western Sahara.

“We fully support the work of the UN Secretary Special Envoy, work that we deem to be absolutely crucial,” Sanchez said during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

He added, “Spain will also continue to support the Sahrawi population in the refugee camps as it always has done, as the main international donor of humanitarian assistance in this context.”

Algerians appreciated the fact that Sanchez spoke of seeking a solution to the Sahara conflict without mentioning the Moroccan proposal for autonomy.

Also, reports said that Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune had told his ministers last September that Spain “began to return to the European position regarding the Sahara issue,” and which “supports the United Nations’ efforts in favor of a political process that will help reach a just and lasting political solution acceptable to all parties.”

The rift in relations between the two Mediterranean neighbors already caused huge losses to institutions and businessmen. Since the beginning of the crisis until mid-2023, the losses are estimated by activists in the field of export and import at about one billion euros.

This also resulted in a severe shortage of several materials and goods in the Algerian market, and has affected many sectors in Spain, including the food industry and livestock meat, which represent important proportions of the turnover of Spanish companies with the Algerian market.

With the exception of gas supplies linked to long-term contracts between both countries, Algeria froze all economic exchanges with Spain, whose exports to Algeria before the political crisis was worth about 3 billion euros.



Hundreds of Thousands Flee as Israel Seizes Rafah in New Gaza 'Security Zone'

A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
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Hundreds of Thousands Flee as Israel Seizes Rafah in New Gaza 'Security Zone'

A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)

Hundreds of thousands of fleeing Gazans sought shelter on Thursday in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war, as Israeli forces advanced into the ruins of the city of Rafah, part of a newly announced "security zone" they intend to seize.

A day after declaring their intention to capture large swathes of the crowded enclave, Israeli force pushed into the city on Gaza's southern edge which had served as a last refuge for people fleeing other areas for much of the war, reported Reuters.

Gaza's health ministry reported at least 97 people killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, including at least 20 killed in an airstrike around dawn in Shejaia suburb of Gaza City.

Rafah "is gone, it is being wiped out," a father of seven among the hundreds of thousands who had fled from Rafah to neighboring Khan Younis, told Reuters via a chat app.

"They are knocking down what is left standing of houses and property," said the man who declined to be identified for fear of repercussions.

After a strike killed several people in Khan Younis, Adel Abu Fakher was checking the damage to his tent.

"Is anything left for us? There’s nothing left for us. We’re being killed while asleep," he said.

The assault to capture Rafah is a major escalation in the war, which Israel restarted last month after effectively abandoning a ceasefire in place since January.

GAZANS FEAR PERMANENT DEPOPULATION

Israel has not spelled out its longterm aims for the security zone its troops are now seizing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayahu said troops were taking an area he called the "Morag Axis", a reference to an abandoned former Israeli settlement once located between Rafah on Gaza's southern edge and the adjacent main southern city Khan Younis.

Gazans who had returned to homes in the ruins during the ceasefire have now been ordered to flee communities on the northern and southern edges of the strip.

They fear that Israel's intention is to depopulate those areas indefinitely, leaving many hundreds of thousands of people permanently homeless in one of the poorest and most crowded territories on earth. The security zone includes some of Gaza's last agricultural land and critical water infrastructure.

Since the first phase of the ceasefire expired at the start of March with no agreement to prolong it, Israel has imposed a total blockade on all goods reaching Gaza's 2.3 million residents, recreating what international organizations describe as a humanitarian catastrophe after weeks of relative calm.

Israel's stated goal since the start of the war has been the destruction of the Hamas group which ran Gaza for nearly two decades and led the attack on Israeli communities in October 2023 that precipitated the war.

But with no effort made to establish an alternative administration, Hamas-led police returned to the streets during the ceasefire. Fighters still hold 59 dead and living hostages which Israel says must be handed over to extend the truce; Hamas says it will free them only under a deal that ends the war.

Israeli leaders say they have been encouraged by signs of protest in Gaza against Hamas, with hundreds of people demonstrating in north Gaza's Beit Lahiya on Wednesday opposing the war and demanding Hamas quit power. Hamas calls the protesters collaborators and says Israel is behind them.

The war began with a Hamas attack on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 with gunmen killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies. Israel's campaign has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, Gaza health authorities say.

Rafah residents said most of the local population had followed Israel's order to leave, as Israeli strikes toppled buildings there. But a strike on the main road between Khan Younis and Rafah stopped most movement between the two cities.

Movement of people and traffic along the western coastal road near Morag was also limited by bombardment, said residents.

"Others stayed because they don't know where to go, or got fed up of being displaced several times. We are afraid they might be killed or at best detained," said Basem, a resident of Rafah who declined to give a second name.

Markets have emptied and prices for basic necessities have soared under Israel's total blockade of food, medicine and fuel.

The Palestinian Health Ministry, which is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but has nominal authority over hospitals in Gaza, said Gaza's entire healthcare system was at risk of collapse.