Algeria appoints ambassador to Madrid after 19 months

By Esat Firat

ALGERIA (AA) - The Algerian administration appointed an ambassador to Madrid after 19 months of “suspended relations,” media reports said Friday.

"The Spanish government has approved the appointment of Abdelfetah Daghmoum as Algeria's ambassador to Spain,” said the Algerian Foreign Ministry, according to the official Algerian news agency, APS.

Meanwhile, the first step has been taken to end the "Spanish-Algerian diplomatic crisis" that began after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wrote to King Mohammed the 6th of Morocco on March 14, 2022, changing his country's Western Sahara policy and supporting the country's autonomy plan for Western Sahara.

- Spain-Algeria relations

The Madrid government had taken action in March 2022 to correct the diplomatic crisis it was experiencing with Morocco due to the Western Sahara problem and normalize relations.

The Spanish premier, in a letter sent to the Moroccan king, announced that he supported the autonomy plan put forward by Morocco on the Western Sahara problem, and then went to Rabat on April 7, 2022, and signed bilateral agreements that allowed him to enter into the normalization process of bilateral relations.

Following the developments, Algeria had withdrawn its ambassador in Madrid, Said Musa, to the center for consultation.

Sanchez, in a speech to parliament on June 8, 2022, defended Spain's change in Western Sahara policy to normalize relations with Morocco, saying that Morocco's proposed plan for Western Sahara is "based on serious, credible and realistic foundations, while Spain has not given up on the cause of the people of this region.”

Hours after the speech, the Algerian Presidency announced the "immediate suspension of the friendship, good neighborliness and cooperation agreement with the Kingdom of Spain," and then the Finance Ministry announced it was freezing foreign trade with Spain.

*Writing by Merve Berker