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After a series of diplomatic successes by Morocco regarding the Sahara issue, Algeria and the Polisario attempted a media stunt. This was evident on Friday, August 23, in Tokyo, during a preparatory meeting for the Japan-Africa summit. According to our information, Polisario separatists, posing under false identities and using Algerian passports as part of the Algerian delegation, gained access to Japanese territory.
They infiltrated the meeting room with Algerian badges. At that moment, a member of the Polisario took out a sign with the name «SADR» from his briefcase and placed it on the table between the delegations of Zambia and Zimbabwe, in defiance of the protocol that seated participants alphabetically. The photo of the Polisario representative at the TICAD meeting was quickly disseminated by media outlets associated with the Front and Algeria to create an illusion.
In response to Morocco's protests, a senior Japanese diplomat who chaired the meeting took the floor to solemnly and officially clarify that Japan does not recognize the «SADR» and did not invite the Polisario to the meeting, a stance consistent with Tokyo's foreign policy.
Contrary to what is being promoted by Algerian media and those affiliated with the Polisario, claiming that the Moroccan delegation attacked the separatist delegation, a video shows a member of the Algerian delegation physically assaulting a Moroccan diplomat who tried to remove the fake sign of the «Polisario».
Algeria commits a diplomatic faux pas in Japan
It’s worth recalling that when a delegation from the separatist movement intruded at the TICAD ministerial meeting in Yokohama in October 2018, the former Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs stated, «Even if an entity, which declares itself a 'country' that Japan does not recognize, is sitting in this room, this does not mean that Japan recognizes it in any implicit or explicit way as a state». This message was intended to reassure the Moroccan side, which had withdrawn from the meeting in response to the presence of members of the Front. Japan reiterated its rejection of the Polisario's participation in the TICAD summit held in August 2022 in Tunis, attended by Brahim Ghali, through the Tunisian president.
These Algerian actions violate the basic rules of diplomatic decorum, particularly the respect for the sovereignty of the host country of an international event that refuses to invite the Polisario. Algiers is notably less assertive when it comes to summits between the African Union and the United States, Russia, India, or Saudi Arabia, from which the separatist movement is nevertheless excluded.
During the last session of the AU Executive Council held in Accra, Ghana, the Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs issued a strong critique against the exclusion of the Polisario from international partnership summits between the African Union and world powers. He argued that this exclusion «harms the credibility of our continental organization, especially as this network of partnerships has continued to expand recently without us, as member states, having our say», Ahmed Attaf said.
