Algeria recalls envoy to Morocco in row over Western Sahara

The Algerian foreign ministry has recalled its ambassador to Morocco and hinted at possible further measures in the latest flareup of tension between the North African neighbours over the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

The move was linked to comments from the Moroccan envoy to the United Nations, Omar Hilal, on Algeria’s Kabylie region, the ministry said after the envoy drew the region into the decades-old row over Western Sahara, which is claimed by Morocco as well as the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.

Hilal had called at a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement for “the right of self-determination for the people living in the Kabylie region” in reference to Algeria’s Tamazight-speaking minority.

He had suggested Algeria should not deny that while backing self-determination for Western Sahara.

The Polisario Front is fighting for the independence of Western Sahara, a Spanish colony until the mid-1970s now largely occupied and administered by Morocco.

Land borders between Algeria and Morocco have been shut since the early 1990s over security, aggravating friction between Algiers and Rabat whose relations have been worsening due to the conflict.