Algeria Recalls Ambassador From Spain Over Western Sahara Issue

ALGIERS (Sputnik) - The Algerian ambassador to Spain has been recalled from Madrid after Spanish authorities expressed support for Morocco’s proposal to give autonomy to Western Sahara, the Algerian Foreign Ministry said.

The foreign ministry said on Saturday that Algeria was surprised by the change in Spain’s stance on Western Sahara and summoned its ambassador from Madrid for consultations.

On Friday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called Morocco’s 2007 proposal to offer Western Sahara autonomy under its sovereignty the "most serious, realistic and credible" way of ending the conflict.

In August 2021, Algiers announced that it was severing diplomatic ties with Morocco due to the neighbor's "hostile actions" since the day of independence. Rabat responded by slamming the move as "unjustified and regrettable." The two North African nations have long been at odds over the control of Western Sahara.

Algeria supports the Polisario Front (Popular Front for the Liberation of Western Sahara), which has fought with Morocco since the 1970s, over the control of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that was transferred to the control of Morocco and Mauritania in 1973.