Algeria wants to handle ties with Morocco within global approach

The Moroccan-Algerian relations should be dealt with within a "global approach," The Algerian Foreign Minister said on Sunday.

"We have numerous and diversified dossiers and it is good for relations between the two countries that these dossiers be settled within a global approach," Ahmed Attaf told Algerian "Al-Watan" daily.

Attaf's statement came as a response to the signals that the Moroccan government has been sending to Algeria for normalization of relations between the two Maghreban countries.

Last week, spokesman of the Moroccan government, Khalid Alioua, said the normalization of relations between Morocco and Algeria is a strategic option for Morocco.

Relations between Morocco and Algeria strained due to Algeria's direct involvement in the Sahara and after Algerian-born French nationals were found guilty of perpetrating in 1994 a terrorist attack against a hotel in Marrakesh (Southern Morocco), killing two Spanish tourists.

Subsequently, Morocco imposed entry visas for Algerians wishing to visit the Kingdom, while Algeria retaliated by closing land borders with Morocco.

The Algerian Foreign Minister recalled that the global approach was proposed "to our Moroccan brothers in 1994 with all its implementation mechanisms."

One of these mechanisms met in Algiers in February 1995. later on, there was a defection of our Moroccan brothers," Attaf said.

Reacting to a recent statement made by Moroccan Prime Minister, Abderrahmane Youssoufi, who said that Morocco wants to have a strong and stable neighbor and to a new Moroccan request to open borders, Attaf said "we share this standpoint as regards objectives and intentions," with Morocco.

"Algeria, too, wishes to have a stable and strong Morocco, because the stability and strength of all Maghreban countries will yield a strong and stable space in the region," he said.

"Regarding the objectives, there is no difference between us (Morocco and Algeria). The only divergence resides in the method used to serve this objective of having a strong and stable Maghreb," he added.