Former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki has slammed Algeria for what he described as the "clinical death" of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), linking the North African bloc's 25-year-long paralysis to Algiers' handling of the Moroccan Sahara issue.
In an interview with the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Marzouki recently said he stands by his position that "Algeria's policy on this issue is the cause of the clinical death of the Arab Maghreb Union and more poverty and suffering for our peoples," adding that the same policy amounts to "trading in the pain of the Sahrawis held in Tindouf for generations."
The former president, who became Tunisia's first head of state after the revolution, was responding to accusations by former Algerian culture and communication minister Abdelaziz Rahabi, who, in an open letter, accused Marzouki of "working for France and Morocco" and attempting to broker a "deal" under which Moroccan autonomy for the Sahara would be exchanged for Algerian access to the Atlantic.
Marzouki categorically denied holding French or Moroccan nationality, describing the allegations as an "institutional media war" waged by Algeria against him and as a propaganda technique reminiscent of Nazi official Joseph Goebbels' alleged rule of repeating a lie until "something sticks."
On the proposal for Algerian access to the Atlantic, Marzouki did not reject the idea, instead describing it as a potential dividend of a "historic reconciliation" between Rabat and Algiers rather than a concession secured through secret negotiations.
He recalled that in 2012, when he was Tunisia's president, he had sought to bring together the leaders of the five Maghreb countries to revive the union project. "Every capital agreed," he said, "except Algeria."
Marzouki also rejected Rahabi's accusation that he had departed from Tunisia's official position of "positive neutrality" on the Sahara issue, a stance the country has officially maintained since 1975. He said the same "veto" that Algiers has imposed on Tunisia's democratic transition since 2011, and on him personally as a symbol of the Arab Spring, is now also being imposed on any reconciliation with Morocco.
The exchange has continued to escalate since the interview was published. Former Algerian ambassador and special envoy for Sahara and Maghreb affairs Ammar Belani published a lengthy rebuttal to Marzouki, titled "Moncef Marzouki at the Service of the Moroccan Narrative, or When Dependency Rewrites History," just days after the interview appeared.
Belani rejected Marzouki's characterization of Algeria as responsible for the union's paralysis, instead accusing Rabat of being the first to suspend activity within Maghreb institutions. He also described Morocco's 1994 visa restrictions on Algerians, imposed after the attack on the Atlas Asni hotel in Marrakech, as the real turning point.
The response was published by the privately owned Algerian media outlet Al Jazair Al Youm rather than by an official Algerian government mouthpiece.
Marzouki's remarks come as the Arab Maghreb Union, founded in 1989, remains institutionally dormant. Its Council of Heads of State has not met since 1994, while the bloc has been repeatedly sidelined by the crisis between Rabat and Algiers over the Sahara issue, particularly since the two Maghreb neighbors formally severed diplomatic relations in 2021.
