La Nouvelle Republique: Algeria shouldn't persist in a hundred-years-standby to support would-be state, Algeria's former defense minister
Algeria-Morocco, Politics, 3/15/2003

Algeria's former defense minister, Khaled Nezzar said that his country "shouldn't hold itself in a hundred-years-standby to support the claims of a would-be state."

In an interview published on Thursday by Algerian paper "La Nouvelle Republique," retired army general Nezzar, in an illustration of his remark, quoted a high ranking Algerian official as saying that if he had "to choose between a war against Morocco or the fate of the Western Sahara" his choice "would be done without second thoughts."

Nezzar, who served as Algeria's defence minister from 1990 to 1993, explained that "this high ranking official has thus subscribed to the logic of (former Algerian Presidents) Houari Boumedienne, Chadli Benjdid and Mohamed Boudiaf."

From this perspective, "I don't see how I could be accused of being inconsistent," referring to his recent statement to a Moroccan weekly, in which he said that "Algeria does not need a new state at its borders."

"Real taboos have been debunked by others, a long time ago and all that was needed is simply how to decipher them," he told "La Nouvelle Republique," which ran the first part of this interview on Wednesday.

Nezzar had rejected accusations that it was the Algerian military establishment that opposed a political solution to the three decade-long conflict.

Previous Stories:
  La Nouvelle Republique: Former Algerian defense minister denies army role in blocking settlement to sahara issue   (3/14/2003)
  Algerian Al Bilad: Former Algerian defense minister's stand on Sahara issue premise for reasonable breakthrough   (3/13/2003)
  La Gazette du Maroc: former Algerian defense minister opposes sahrawi state creation   (3/11/2003)

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