Massad Boulos, a senior adviser to Trump on Africa and Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, met with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in Algiers on Sunday, marking his second visit to Algeria this year.
The visit reflects a deliberate US diplomatic push tied to the approaching October deadline on the Sahara issue at the United Nations Security Council, rather than simply managing US-Algerian relations, according to Sahara affairs analyst Mohamed Salem Abdel Fattah.
Boulos's separate meeting with Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf explicitly addressed "developments in the Sahara situation," alongside Libya, the Sahel and bilateral relations, Algeria's Foreign Ministry confirmed.
"This suggests Washington appears to be in a phase of political preparation ahead of the October deadline, not merely managing US-Algerian relations," Abdel Fattah said.
He pointed to Security Council Resolution 2797, adopted on October 31, 2025, which extended the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) only to October 31 this year.
"This makes the current period a test of whether the political track that followed the resolution has been able to move from contacts and preparatory meetings to clearer results toward reaching a political solution based on the Moroccan autonomy initiative," Abdel Fattah said.
Given that Algeria itself confirmed that developments in the Sahara were on the table, Abdel Fattah said it would be difficult to sideline the file within the visit's broader agenda.
The issue, he noted, has always featured in talks between the two sides, even when the substance of any understandings remained undisclosed.
What matters now, in his view, is not whether the Sahara appears on the agenda but how far Algeria is willing to commit to the spirit of Resolution 2797, which treats Morocco's autonomy initiative as the sole framework for negotiation.
Tebboune's own words in May offer a data point worth weighing, Abdel Fattah said. The Algerian president acknowledged that Resolution 2797 "is progressing," a marked shift from Algeria's abstention when the resolution was adopted in October 2025.
Reports have also noted, he added, that Tebboune no longer repeats, with the same force, the referendum and independence rhetoric that long anchored official Algerian discourse on the file.
He was careful, though, not to overstate the shift. "What appears to have changed is the degree of openness to the process, more than a shift in the final position on the substance of the dispute," Abdel Fattah said.
Washington's likely objective, in his assessment, is to push Algeria to avoid effectively rejecting Resolution 2797 while keeping it engaged in the contacts and negotiations the resolution set in motion.
Sustained engagement, he reasoned, could eventually move discussions toward the details of a settlement rather than a return to what he described as outdated separatist positions.
Rather than a wholesale change of direction, Abdel Fattah described Algeria's current posture as an attempt to manage an internal contradiction.
Algeria remains a principal backer of the Polisario Front, he said, even as it adjusts the tone of its official diplomatic language and continues engaging Washington on the file under the terms of the UN resolution.
That opening to American mediation, he argued, traces directly back to sustained US pressure.
Abdel Fattah also cited President Trump's August 3 message to King Mohammed VI, which renewed US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara and reaffirmed support for the autonomy proposal as "the sole basis for negotiation."
"Algeria may be facing a difficult equation," Abdel Fattah said. He described a balancing act between continuing to support the Polisario Front, avoiding a direct collision with Washington, and taking part in a political process built on Morocco's autonomy initiative, all without publicly abandoning its long-standing rhetoric on self-determination and independence at home.
