Following the dismissal of General Mohamed Mediène as director of Algeria’s DRS intelligence service, on 13 September last year, our Algeria Politics & Security publication predicted that a number of changes may now take place in Algerian policy. One of those that our author foresaw was that the government might take steps towards re-opening the Algeria-Morocco border.

Nothing has yet been said to confirm that Algeria has fixed plans to open the Algeria-Morocco border. However, one cause for optimism came on 13 February when Mohcine Belabbas, president of RCD opposition party, called for the restoration of Algeria-Morocco border crossings.

It did not necessarily appear as though he had inside knowledge about any such plans being enacted imminently, and this is a policy that his party has been proposing for a long time. But his statement  did indicate that this issue is at least being given attention at the highest levels of the Algerian state, and it added to a sense that some kind of policy change may soon take place.

However, a stronger hint came on 17 February. Using the occasion of the 27^th anniversary of the announcement in Marrakech of the establishment of an Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), President Abdelaziz Bouteflika sent letters to Tunisia’s President Beji Caid Essebsi and the Morocco’s King Mohamed VI, calling for the AMU to come into effect.

The key sentence in Bouteflika’s letter said: ‘We remain fully convinced that the completion of the construction of the Maghreb Union represents an absolute necessity in this particular situation where our region faces threats and unprecedented challenges that must be addressed through collective action and a common and co-ordinated strategy.’

The AMU, which was established in Marrakech on 17 February 1989, comprises Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania. But it has never come into effect because of the on-going Algerian-Moroccan dispute over Western Sahara. Algeria’s closure of its border with Morocco in 1994 merely made the situation worse.

Whether we ascribe it to the process of a post- Mediène policy or the fact that Algeria can no longer afford the luxury of damaging its neighbour through the Algeria-Morocco border closure, our Algeria Politics & Security report does see President Bouteflika’s letter as a sign that the regime may at last be planning to open the Algeria-Morocco border – if only out of economic self-interest.

Another sign of improving relations between the neighbours is that border incidents, one of the most frequent irritants to their strained ties, have increasingly been resolved without escalation.

In one of the most recent examples, it was reported that a Moroccan man had been killed by the Algerian military, near the Algeria-Morocco border, on 12 February. The incident took place in the rural commune of Abbou Lakhal, a small town near the city of Bouarfa, in the northeast of Morocco. The incident occurred, according to local reports, when the victim was caught in the crossfire between the Algerian army and a contraband smuggling operation across the Algeria-Morocco border.

The Moroccan authorities have reportedly opened an investigation into the incident, but there have been no official statements from either the Moroccan or Algerian sides. This suggests that the incident will not escalate into a wider diplomatic row. Even that, in the context of their bitter history, could be seen as a sign of rapprochement between the two countries.

This article was taken from our Algeria Politics & Security publication.