After the break with Morocco, Algeria insults Tunisia

Algeria has once again proven its lack of respect and consideration for its neighbours. This time, it is Tunisia that has been targeted by indecent remarks about its sovereignty. During a televised interview, an Algerian politician affirmed that Algiers considered Tunisia as an Algerian Wilaya, questioning the sovereignty of a State.

After having carried out a strategy of more than 50 years to try to seize the Saharan provinces of Morocco, through a false entity called polisario, for the international facade, it is by a revealing slip on Tunisia that the former parliamentarian Algerian, Elhouari Tigharsi, demonstrated that Algeria’s expansionist tendencies are aimed at all of North Africa.

” Let’s be honest, Tunisia is considered one of the most important Wilayas (regions) in Algeria. The President of the Republic insisted on one point, it is that the security of Tunisia was the responsibility of Algeria.declared the Algerian, Elhouari Tigharsi, who was the guest of the pan-Arab channel Skynewsarabia.

” This is your own interpretation“, quickly reacted the journalist TV presenter to save the situation.

” We do not want the channel or the Algerian state to take responsibility (for your words) because it may produce reactions among Tunisians, especially since it is about the sovereignty of Tunisia, and therefore we cannot consider that an independent and sovereign country is one of the regions of a neighboring country”, she added.

” How rude! Tunisia is a sovereign country, not an Algerian region! Algerian opponent Oualid Kebir was indignant in a tweet. And to add that the discourse held by this politician, converted into an analyst, is a “offense to neighbors” Tunisians, affirming that Tunisia is an ancient country and that it must be respected.

Elhouari Tigharsi, who delivered his reading of relations between Tunisia and Algeria, thanks to the reopening of the land borders between the two countries, did not hesitate to question the sovereignty of a State, under the pretext of warming of relations between Algiers and Tunis since the rise to power of Abdelmadjid Tebboune and the democratic election of Kais Said in Tunisia.

” We will not blame you, as Tunisians, we know the inferiority complex and the policy of oversized egos and reducing the other to cover this complex. The case is understandable and your apologies are rejected”, replied a Tunisian Internet user under his post.

And two others to mention that the words of the Algerian politician reflected expansionist thoughts, in particular by an Internet user who wrote that “apologize or not, doesn’t change anything” about. ” Yes, Tunisia is in crisis, and yes, Algeria is a brother country, but your words hide a deliberate wickedness and an expansionist position adopted by a significant part of the Algerian people, in particular the Algerian authority, led by Tebboune” , he insisted.

” Your words are not oversights or slips… On the contrary, they reflect a limited intellectual level and a lack of culture (…) Your name El Houari, named after the late leader Boukhrouba, may have inspired to adopt the same old ideas and expansionist intentions, especially in the 70s of the last century, which prompted the leader Bourguiba to remind him that Annaba was Tunisian before it was given to Algeria by France in thinking that it would remain a French department forever”, wrote another Tunisian refusing the apology.

With the outcry that his intervention caused in Tunisia, the politician apologized, completely denying having intended to say this sentence: “Let’s say it frankly, Tunisia is considered one of the most important Wilayas (regions) in Algeria”.

“How can I consider that Tunisia is a territorial extension of Algeria? »he wrote in a post on Facebook, apologizing, without forgetting to point out that the journalist who interviewed him was Moroccan, as if trying to involve her in the mistake he made.

Algeria and Tunisia: A dubious relationship since 2019

Faced with the financial and economic problems encountered by Tunisia and its inability to raise international funds due to the deep political crisis affecting the country, it was Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s Algeria that hastened to play the savior.

In February 2020, barely a few months after the election of the two presidents, Algeria granted 150 million dollars to Tunisia in the form of a guarantee deposit (unpaid) at the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT) and facilities supply of hydrocarbons for an unlimited time.

In November 2021, Algeria granted a loan of 300 million dollars to Tunisia, on the occasion of a two-day state visit by Abdelmadjid Tebboune to Tunis. The two news were not well received in Algeria because of the deep problems that the country is facing with a lack of hospitals, basic services, food etc.

For a certain number of Algerians, these repetitive gestures towards Tunisia hide the hidden interests of the Algerian authorities, the first of which was the recognition on the part of Kais Said, a democratically elected president, of Abdelmadjid Tebboune propelled to power by the military junta.

“150 million dollars and the continuation of the supply of gas and oil to Tunisia in financial difficulty: here is the counterpart of the visit of Kais Saied to Tebboune the illegitimate. Moreover, Tebboune announces it with this way that I find unworthy and humiliating”tweeted an Algerian Internet user, commenting on the condescending gestures of the Algerian president when the loan was announced.

Indeed, it is not out of friendship that Algeria multiplies these financial gestures, the supply of vaccines (received by Covax) which were sorely lacking in the country and the sending of oxygen at the very time when the Algerians multiplied the calls for help because of oxygen shortages.

This is the result of a political calculation in the Sahara affair, because so far the Algerian military junta had never succeeded in bending the Tunisian leaders to make them endorse the separatist thesis against Morocco.

And it happened somewhat, since Tunisia received 300 million dollars from Algeria, as a thank you, a month after abstaining from voting for the Security Council resolution on the extension of the mandate of Minurso in the Sahara issue.

Algeria (which did not vote) had announced that it did not support this resolution, Russia, its arms supplier had expressed reservations, and thus only 2 countries had abstained out of the 15 voters, without surprises, it these were Tunisia and Russia.