Boufelika: I will never let an Algerian die for Western Sahara

Campaigning Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika said he would "never" let a compatriot die for the cause of the Western Sahara, a disputed territory between Morocco and the Algeria-backed separatist movement "Polisario."

Bouteflika who is campaigning for April 8 presidential election, was quoted by the Algerian media as saying, at a meeting in the Kbyle region, that his country "has gone through difficult years,(while) brothers and friends (countries) were watching from a distance. Today, we side with those who suffer, but not to the detriment of Algeria's interests."

The Algerian president whose country has been supporting the Polisario since 1976, a year after Morocco retrieved this former Spanish colony under the Madrid Accords signed with Spain and Mauritania, was also quoted as saying that "Algeria was isolated, and no country, no brother, no friend, nor any other dared to look at us, and this is why, Algeria must rely only on itself."

"I will never let any Algerian die for the Sahrawi cause or any other cause, except the Algerian cause," insisted the president-candidate in a first ever statement of the kind.

Morocco has been at loggerheads with Algeria over the (Western) Sahara dispute although Algiers authorities always denied any involvement in this conflict despite their moral, financial, political, logistic and military support to the separatist movement claiming independence of this territory located south of Morocco.

The future of this territory has been under scrutiny by the UN secretary general Kofi Annan whose personal envoy James Baker has drafted a peace plan whose latest version was rejected by Morocco as it does not heed the interests of the Moroccans native of the Sahara who fear that any solution that does not take into account Morocco's sovereignty over this territory might trigger tribal wars.