‘Dangerous’ Western Sahara showdown sparks diplomatic rifts

Sahrawi soldiers parade during the celebrations marking the 45th anniversary of the declaration of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic at a refugee camp on the outskirts of the southwestern Algerian city of Tindouf on Feb. 27, 2021. (AFP)
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Updated 06 September 2022
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‘Dangerous’ Western Sahara showdown sparks diplomatic rifts

  • Morocco angry as Tunisian president greets Polisario head Brahim Ghali on a red carpet at Tunis airport

TUNIS: A bitter showdown between Morocco and its arch-rival Algeria over the disputed Western Sahara territory is causing diplomatic rifts with other nations and even risks sparking a full-blown conflict, analysts say.

“We’re seeing a diplomatic war, where both sides are resorting to anything short of open conflict,” said Riccardo Fabiani, North Africa project director at think-tank the International Crisis Group.

Western Sahara, a Spanish colony until 1975, is mostly desert but boasts immense phosphate resources and rich Atlantic fishing grounds.

About 80 percent of it is controlled by Morocco and 20 percent by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front which seeks self-determination for the local Sahrawi people.

The conflict has long simmered but its dynamics changed in 2020 when then US President Donald Trump recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for the kingdom’s normalization of relations with Israel.

Emboldened by Washington’s backing, Rabat has been playing hardball ever since to persuade other states to follow suit, heightening tensions with Algiers, which has since cut diplomatic relations with Rabat.

Last week, Morocco reacted angrily when Tunisia’s President Kais Saied greeted Polisario head Brahim Ghali on a red carpet at Tunis airport as he arrived for a Japan-Africa investment summit.

Slamming the act as “hostile” and “unnecessarily provocative,” Morocco immediately canceled its participation in the high-profile conference and withdrew its ambassador for consultations — prompting Tunisia to respond in kind.

The incident showed that “the Western Sahara conflict is starting to have repercussions beyond bilateral Morocco and Algerian relations,” Fabiani said. “From now on Morocco will consider Tunisia as part of the pro-Algerian camp.”

Morocco’s 2020 deal with Trump also reset Rabat’s ties with Israel and opened the door to military cooperation with the Jewish state.

Algeria, which has long supported the Palestinian cause and sees Israeli influence on its doorstep as a threat, cut ties entirely with Morocco the following August, citing “hostile acts” — including the alleged use of Israeli spyware against its senior officials.

Fabiani said the shifting dynamic had meant “the unfreezing” of the Western Sahara conflict.

On the ground, this has taken the form of repeated clashes since late 2020 between Morocco’s military and the Polisario, which had agreed to a ceasefire in 1991.

On the diplomatic front, Rabat’s more assertive stance was evident in a year-long diplomatic dispute with Madrid.

In April 2021, Ghali visited Spain to be treated for COVID-19, sparking a row that only ended after Madrid dropped its decades-long stance of neutrality over Western Sahara and backed a Moroccan plan for limited self-rule there.

And last month, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI demanded in a speech that his country’s other allies “clarify” their positions on the issue, calling it “the prism through which Morocco views its international environment.”

But observers say that Morocco is not the only party in the region to be behaving more assertively.

Algeria is Africa’s top natural gas exporter with pipelines directly to Europe, and in recent months has hosted a steady stream of top European officials hoping to win favor and new gas contracts.

Algeria, Africa’s largest country, has been flush with cash since energy prices soared following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“During the last decade, Morocco geared up its diplomacy, especially in Africa, and became more assertive with some EU members,” said Dalia Ghanem, a senior analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies.

At the same time Algeria, under the late president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, “lagged behind,” she said. “Now, Algeria wants to get back on the regional arena and be the regional leader in Africa.”

“There was a big Algerian campaign to recruit Tunisia to its side,” said Anthony Dworkin, a senior policy fellow at think tank the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Tunisia, Algeria’s smaller neighbor, is struggling with a grinding economic crisis and has also seen political turmoil since Saied staged a dramatic power grab in July last year.

Dworkin warned that there was now “a disturbing trend of everything in the region being seen in a binary way through the prism of Algerian-Moroccan rivalry.”

“Morocco is pushing a narrative of ‘you’re with us or against us’, and there has been some similar rhetoric from Algeria,” he added, warning European governments to seek balanced relationships with all sides.

“It’s a delicate and dangerous moment.”

Last weekend, the United Nations’ Western Sahara envoy Staffan de Mistura visited the region, but few observers see any prospect of progress in long-suspended negotiations.


Israel may have breached EU agreement, bloc’s foreign policy arm says

Updated 59 min 27 sec ago
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Israel may have breached EU agreement, bloc’s foreign policy arm says

  • EU-Israel pact requires “respect for human rights and democratic principles” for both sides
  • EU foreign ministers are set to discuss the review during a gathering in Brussels on Monday

BRUSSELS: The European Union’s diplomatic service said on Friday there were indications that Israel had breached its human rights obligations under the terms of a pact governing its ties with the bloc, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Citing assessments by independent international institutions, the European External Action Service said “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.”
The report comes after months of deepening concern in European capitals about Israel’s operations in Gaza and the humanitarian situation in the enclave.
“Israel’s continued restrictions to the provision of food, medicines, medical equipment, and other vital supplies affect the entire population of Gaza present on the affected territory,” the document said.

Palestinians try to get food at a charity kitchen providing hot meals in Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City on June 18, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Asked about the EU review, an Israeli official called it “a one-sided report that exemplifies the double standards the EU uses toward Israel.”
Under the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which came into force in 2000, the EU and Israel agreed that their relationship “shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles.”
The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, announced in May that the bloc would examine whether Israel was complying with the terms of the pact, after over half of EU members backed the conducting of a review.
The report includes a section dedicated to the situation in Gaza, covering issues related to denial of humanitarian aid, attacks with a significant number of casualties, attacks on hospitals and medical facilities, displacement, and lack of accountability.

Mourners carry a body for burial outside al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, on June 20, 2025, after several Palestinians were killed as they reportedly headed to a food distribution centre in the war-stricken Gaza Strip. (AFP)

The report also looks at the situation in the West Bank, including settler violence.
The document relies on “facts verified by and assessments made by independent international institutions, and with a focus on most recent events in Gaza and the West Bank,” it said.
Israel has said that it respects international law and that operations in Gaza are necessary to destroy Hamas, the Palestinian group responsible for the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.
EU foreign ministers are set to discuss the review during a gathering in Brussels on Monday. Member countries remain divided in their approach to Israel.
While some ministers could advocate for moving toward taking action based on the review, no concrete decisions are expected at Monday’s session.
Diplomats expect EU officials will reach out to Israel with the outcome of the review in an effort to influence it, and that ministers will return to the subject during a July meeting.


Morocco says 2024 ‘hottest year’ on record

Updated 21 June 2025
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Morocco says 2024 ‘hottest year’ on record

  • Moroccan climatologist Mohammed-Said Karrouk, who also heads Morocco’s National Future Planet Committee, warned that the kingdom’s geography and climate make it more vulnerable to temperature extremes

RABAT: The year 2024 was Morocco’s hottest on record, the North African country’s meteorological agency said on Friday, mirroring the record surface temperatures measured globally.
In an annual report, the agency said it recorded an average temperature anomaly of +1.49 degrees Celsius (+2.7 Fahrenheit) last year compared to the 1991-2020 period.
“The year 2024 stands out as the hottest ever recorded in Morocco,” it said, adding that every month in 2024, excluding June and September, had been hotter than the average for the 1991-2020 reference period.
Several cities broke daily heat records, with 47.6 degrees Celsius (117.7 Fahrenheit) in Marrakech and 47.7 degrees Celsius (117.8 Fahrenheit) in Beni Mellal in July last year, the agency said.
It also noted “an increase in thermal anomalies, particularly during the autumn and winter seasons.”
Morocco’s all-time heat record was set in August 2023, when temperatures hit 50.4 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in Agadir.
The country, which is enduring a seventh straight year of drought, registered an average rainfall deficit of -24.7 percent last year, the report said.
The agency said last year’s data reflected “an amplification of climate contrasts in Morocco, where prolonged droughts alternate with episodes of extreme precipitation.”
Torrential rains in September 2024 — causing floods and killing 18 people — “did not reverse the overall rainfall deficit,” it added.
Moroccan climatologist Mohammed-Said Karrouk, who also heads Morocco’s National Future Planet Committee, warned that the kingdom’s geography and climate make it more vulnerable to temperature extremes.
He said warming was now observed in all seasons.
“In autumn, lingering summer heat combined with gradually cooling temperatures favors violent downpours, which have become more dangerous due to excess humidity in the atmosphere,” he said.
“In winter, the heat originating mostly from warming tropical oceans now influences North Africa as well.”
A former member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Karrouk also warned of a recent intensification of the West African monsoon — a seasonal wind system that brings moist air from the Atlantic Ocean — which he linked to the deadly September floods.
He called for the construction of shelters to protect vulnerable populations and dams to capture water — a valuable resource with Morocco’s unrelenting drought.
Weather extremes have taken a toll on farming, a vital sector for Morocco which employs nearly a third of its active population and accounts for 12 percent of GDP.
Scientists say that recurring heatwaves are a clear marker of global warming and that they are set to become more frequent, longer and more intense.
Fuelled by human-driven climate change, 2024 was the warmest year on record globally — and 2025 is projected to rank among the top three.

 


Hundreds of US citizens left Iran in last week, State Dept cable says

Updated 21 June 2025
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Hundreds of US citizens left Iran in last week, State Dept cable says

  • Washington is looking at ways to potentially evacuate its citizens from Israel, but it has almost no way of assisting Americans inside Iran

WASHINGTON: Hundreds of American citizens have departed Iran using land routes over the past week since an aerial war between the Islamic Republic and Israel broke out, according to an internal State Department cable seen by Reuters on Friday.
While many left without problem, “numerous” citizens had faced “delays and harassment” while trying to exit, the cable said. It said, without giving further details, that one unidentified family had reported that two US citizens attempting to leave Iran had been detained.
The internal cable dated June 20 underscores the challenge Washington is facing in trying to protect and assist its citizens in a country with which it has no diplomatic relations and in a war in which the United States may soon get involved.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The cable was first reported by The Washington Post.

HIGHLIGHTS

• US advises land exits via Azerbaijan, Armenia or Turkey

• Some US citizens departing Iran faced problems, cable says

• Over 6,400 US citizens filled possible evacuation form in Israel

President Donald Trump and the White House said on Thursday he will decide in the next two weeks whether the US will get involved in the Israel-Iran war. Trump has kept the world guessing on his plans, veering from proposing a swift diplomatic solution to suggesting Washington might join the fighting on Israel’s side.
The air war began on June 13 when Israel attacked Iran and has alarmed a region that has been on edge since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East widely believed to have nuclear weapons, and said it struck Iran to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, has retaliated with its own strikes on Israel. Iran is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not.

POTENTIAL EVACUATION
The US State Department in a travel alert earlier on Friday urged its citizens wishing to depart Iran to use land routes via Azerbaijan, Armenia or Turkiye. Iranian airspace is closed.
The US Embassy in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat has requested entry for over 100 American citizens, but the Turkmenistan government has yet to give its approval, the cable said.
The Islamic Republic treats Iranian-US dual citizens solely as nationals of Iran, the State Department emphasized.
“US nationals are at significant risk of questioning, arrest and detention in Iran,” the alert said.
Washington is looking at ways to potentially evacuate its citizens from Israel, but it has almost no way of assisting Americans inside Iran. The two countries have had no diplomatic ties since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Thursday said the administration was looking at different ways to get US citizens out.
“We’re working to get military, commercial, charter flights and cruise ships for evac,” he said in an X post, urging US citizens and green card holders to complete an online form.
As of Friday, more than 6,400 US citizens filled out that form for Israel, a separate internal department email seen by Reuters said. The form allows the agency to predict an approximate figure for potential evacuations.
“Approximately 300-500 US citizens per day would potentially require departure assistance,” said the internal email, also dated June 20 and marked “sensitive.”
The State Department does not have official figures but thousands of US citizens are thought to be residing in Iran and hundreds of thousands in Israel.
Israel’s strikes over the last week have killed 639 people in Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Israel says Iranian attacks have killed 24 civilians in Israel.
“The US Department of State received no reports of US citizen casualties in Israel or Iran,” the second email said.

 


A woman tried to call her mom in Iran. A robotic voice answered the phone

This picture shows a general view of Iran's capital Tehran on June 16, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 21 June 2025
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A woman tried to call her mom in Iran. A robotic voice answered the phone

  • “Calling your mom and expecting to hear her voice and hearing an AI voice is one of the most scary things I’ve ever experienced,” she said. “I can feel it in my body”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: When Ellie, a British-Iranian living in the United Kingdom, tried to call her mother in Tehran, a robotic female voice answered instead.
“Alo? Alo?” the voice said, then asked in English: “Who is calling?” A few seconds passed.
“I can’t heard you,” the voice continued, its English imperfect. “Who you want to speak with? I’m Alyssia. Do you remember me? I think I don’t know who are you.”
Ellie, 44, is one of nine Iranians living abroad — including in the U.K and US — who said they have gotten strange, robotic voices when they attempted to call their loved ones in Iran since Israel launched airstrikes on the country a week ago.
They told their stories to The Associated Press on the condition they remain anonymous or that only their first names or initials be used out of fear of endangering their families.
Five experts with whom the AP shared recordings said it could be low-tech artificial intelligence, a chatbot or a pre-recorded message to which calls from abroad were diverted.
It remains unclear who is behind the operation, though four of the experts believed it was likely to be the Iranian government while the fifth saw Israel as more likely.
The messages are deeply eerie and disconcerting for Iranians in the diaspora struggling to contact their families as Israel’s offensive targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites pounds Tehran and other cities. Iran has retaliated with hundreds of missiles and drones, and the government has imposed a widespread Internet blackout it says is to protect the country.
That has blocked average Iranians from getting information from the outside world, and their relatives from being able to reach them.
“I don’t know why they’re doing this,” said Ellie, whose mother is diabetic, low on insulin and trapped on the outskirts of Tehran. She wants her mother to evacuate the city but cannot communicate that to her.
A request for comment sent to the Iranian mission to the UN was not immediately answered.
Some of the messages are bizarre
Most of the voices speak in English, though at least one spoke Farsi. If the caller tries to talk to it, the voice just continues with its message.
A 30-year-old women living in New York, who heard the same message Ellie did, called it “psychological warfare.”
“Calling your mom and expecting to hear her voice and hearing an AI voice is one of the most scary things I’ve ever experienced,” she said. “I can feel it in my body.”
And the messages can be bizarre. One woman living in the UK desperately called her mom and instead got a voice offering platitudes.
“Thank you for taking the time to listen,” it said, in a recording that she shared with the AP. “Today, I’d like to share some thoughts with you and share a few things that might resonate in our daily lives. Life is full of unexpected surprises, and these surprises can sometimes bring joy while at other times they challenge us.”
Not all Iranians abroad encounter the robotic voice. Some said when they try to call family, the phone just rings and rings.
It’s not clear who is behind this — or what the goal is
Colin Crowell, a former vice president for Twitter’s global policy, said it appeared that Iranian phone companies were diverting the calls to a default message system that does not allow calls to be completed.
Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity expert based in the US, agreed and said the recordings appeared to be a government measure to thwart hackers, though there was no hard evidence.
He said that in the first two days of Israel’s campaign, mass voice and text messages were sent to Iranian phones urging the public to gear up for “emergency conditions.” They aimed to spread panic — similar to mass calls that government opponents made into Iran during the war with Iraq in the 1980s.
The voice messages trying to calm people “fit the pattern of the Iranian government and how in the past it handled emergency situations,” said Rashidi, the director of Texas-based Miaan, a group that reports on digital rights in the Middle East.
Mobile phones and landlines ultimately are overseen by Iran’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology. But the country’s intelligence services have long been believed to be monitoring conversations.
“It would be hard for anybody else to hack. Of course, it is possible it is Israeli. But I don’t think they have an incentive to do this,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, a tech entrepreneur and Internet freedom activist.
Marwa Fatafta, Berlin-based policy and advocacy director for digital rights group Access Now, suggested it could be “a form of psychological warfare by the Israelis.” She said it fits a past pattern by Israel of using extensive direct messaging to Lebanese and Palestinians during campaigns in Gaza and against Hezbollah.
The messages, she said, appear aimed at “tormenting” already anxious Iranians abroad.
When contacted with requests for comment, the Israeli military declined and the prime minister’s office did not respond.
Trying new ways to contact relatives
Ellie is one of a lucky few who found a way to reach relatives since the blackout. She knows someone who lives on the Iran-Turkiye border and has two phones — one with a Turkish SIM card and one with an Iranian SIM.
He calls Ellie’s mother with the Iranian phone — since people inside the country are still able to call one another — and presses it to the Turkish phone, where Ellie’s on the line. The two are able to speak.
“The last time we spoke to her, we told her about the AI voice that is answering all her calls,” said Ellie. “She was shocked. She said her phone hasn’t rung at all.”
Elon Musk said he has activated his satellite Internet provider Starlink in Iran, where a small number of people are believed to have the system, even though it is illegal. Authorities are urging the public to turn in neighbors with the devices as part of an ongoing spy hunt. Others have illegal satellite dishes, granting them access to international news.
The messages are making relatives feel helpless
M., a woman in the UK, has been trying to reach her mother-in-law, who is immobile and lives in Tehran’s northeast, which has been pummeled by Israeli bombardment throughout the week.
When she last spoke to her family in Iran, they were mulling whether she should evacuate from the city. Then the blackout was imposed, and they lost contact. Since then she has heard through a relative that the woman was in the ICU with respiratory problems.
When she calls, she gets the same bizarre message as the woman in the UK, a lengthy mantra.
“Close your eyes and picture yourself in a place that brings you peace and happiness,” it says. “Maybe you are walking through a serene forest, listening to the rustle of leaves and birds chirping. Or you’re by the seashore, hearing the calming sound of waves crashing on the sand.”
The only feeling the message does instill in her, she said, is “helplessness.”

 


Trump says two weeks is ‘maximum’ for Iran decision

Updated 20 June 2025
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Trump says two weeks is ‘maximum’ for Iran decision

  • Trump also played down the possibility of asking Israel to halt its attacks
  • The US president dismissed the chance of success in talks between European powers and Iran

MORRISTOWN, United States: President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible US air strikes, indicating he could take a decision before the fortnight deadline he set a day earlier.

Trump added that Iran “doesn’t want to talk to Europe,” dismissing the chance of success in talks between European powers and Iran in Geneva on resolving the conflict between Israel and Iran.

Trump also played down the possibility of asking Israel to halt its attacks, after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran would not resume talks with the United States until Israel relented.

“I’m giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum,” Trump told reporters when asked if he could decide to strike Iran before that.

He added that the aim was to “see whether or not people come to their senses.”

Trump had said in a statement on Thursday that he would “make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks” because there was a “substantial chance of negotiations” with Iran.

Those comments had been widely seen as opening a two-week window for negotiations to end the war between Israel and Iran, with the European powers rushing to talks with Tehran.

But his latest remarks indicated that Trump could still make his decision before that if he feels that there has been no progress toward dismantling Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump dismissed the chances of Europe making a difference, saying the talks between Britain, France, Germany and EU diplomats and Tehran’s foreign minister “didn’t help.”

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this,” Trump told reporters as he arrived in Morristown, New Jersey.

Asked if he would ask Israel to stop its attacks as Iran had asked, Trump said it was “very hard to make that request right now.”

“If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody’s losing, but we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran, and we’ll see what happens.”