Morocco-Algeria: after the Sahara, it is time for reconciliation

1. New scenario
2. A border conflict
3. Meetings on the Sahara
4. Support for the Polisario
5. An opportunity for the Maghreb

In his first speech after the announcement of Resolution 2797(2025) endorsing Morocco's autonomy plan for the Sahara, King Mohammed VI once again adopted a conciliatory tone towards Algeria, reiterating his call to Algerian leaders to reach a final solution to the conflict that has existed between the two countries for more than half a century.

It is true that the Sahara issue is not the only point of contention between the two countries, but it is also true that the confrontation in recent years, due to Algerian support for the Polisario Front and Morocco's diplomatic offensive to garner international support for its autonomy plan for the region, had caused the situation to become entrenched.

In fact, the Sahara was the main reason why Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune pushed for the definitive break in diplomatic relations between the two countries in August 2021.

New scenario

However, now, following the UN Security Council resolution, a new scenario is opening up in which reconciliation between Morocco and Algeria would be a step forward for both countries, benefiting the Maghreb region and their own influence in the international geopolitical context.

Added to this is the Trump variable: the new US administration has set out to press for reconciliation between Morocco and Algeria in an attempt to win over the latter, a traditional ally of Russia in the troubled Sahel region.

Just a few weeks ago, Steve Winkoff, the White House special envoy to the Middle East, said that an agreement between Morocco and Algeria could be a reality within two months: ‘Peace between the two countries will be a turning point in the stability of North Africa and the region as a whole.’

A border conflict

To understand how this period of enmity between Morocco and Algeria began, culminating in 2021 with the breakdown of diplomatic relations, we must go back to the 1960s. Specifically, to October 1963, when a border dispute between the two countries led to the so-called Sand War. Morocco claimed its rights over the territories of Tindouf and Becher, which France had annexed to French Algeria during the colonial period.

This was the first military confrontation between the two countries, although it was short-lived. The formal peace treaty that ended this conflict was signed in 1964.

The efforts of the leaders of both countries, King Hassan II of Morocco and Algerian President Houari Boumediene, to normalise bilateral relations came to fruition on 15 January 1969 with the signing of the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighbourliness and Cooperation in Ifrane.

Despite this signing, it was not until the signing of the Algerian-Moroccan Border Treaty, an agreement signed in Rabat in 1972, that the land border between Algeria and Morocco was defined. The foreign ministers of both countries signed the agreement, which was ratified by Algeria in 1973 and by Morocco in 1992.

Meetings on the Sahara

By 1970, the disagreements between Morocco and Algeria were already evident. That year, the leaders of both countries met in Nouadhibou (Mauritania) with the first Mauritanian president, Mokhtar Ould Daddah, in order to coordinate efforts to liberate the so-called Spanish Sahara and turn it into the Maghreb version of the prosperous Ruhr basin, the industrial centre of Germany.

As the then Mauritanian president explained in his memoirs, mutual distrust between Moroccans and Algerians grew, and it was not possible to reconcile positions either at the subsequent summit in Agadir (1973) or in Rabat (1974), which was the last face-to-face meeting between Hassan II and Boumediene.

Upon leaving Rabat, Boumediene assured that Algeria had no ambitions regarding the Sahara and welcomed the agreement between Morocco and Mauritania.

In the midst of these meetings, mistrust between the two countries had intensified following the attempted coup in Morocco in August 1972, a failed plot led by General Mohamed Oufkir, a close adviser to Hassan II, and the commander of the Kenitra air base, Mohamed Abekrane.

The so-called Operation Buraq, in which several military fighter jets fired on the presidential plane without managing to hit the King, fuelled suspicions of possible collaboration by Algeria, which was never proven.

Support for the Polisario

In 1975, Algeria's support for the Polisario Front, allowing them to establish their base in Tindouf and providing them with supplies, weapons and funding, contributed to the deterioration of relations between the two countries.

Despite this, the then Algerian Foreign Minister, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, attempted to reconcile positions with Hassan II by visiting him in Rabat. From that meeting, he obtained a joint statement to overcome the differences between Algeria and Morocco. The problem was that diplomacy had already lost its ability to decide on bilateral relations, which had become a matter of military security.

In 1978, a final diplomatic attempt was made with the organisation of a meeting between King Hassan II of Morocco and Algerian President Houari Boumediene in Brussels, which could not take place due to the latter's illness, as he died shortly afterwards.

From then on, tensions escalated, always against the backdrop of Western Sahara and Algeria's support for the Polisario Front, culminating in the aforementioned breakdown of diplomatic relations in 2021.

An opportunity for the Maghreb

In this context, the resolution of the Sahara conflict following the UN's support for Morocco's proposed autonomy plan represents an opportunity for Morocco and Algeria to take a step forward, for their own benefit, that of the Maghreb region and the African continent, and to resolve their differences.

These differences are hindering their aspirations in a changing global context, in which the partnership between the two great powers of the Maghreb would make it an important international player on the African continent, which is usually subject to the power games between the major international powers, such as the United States, Russia and China.