Algeria leverages Japan's passivity to include Polisario in summit

The Polisario Front participated in the second day of the preparatory meeting for the Japan-Africa summit held in Tokyo on Saturday. The Front's delegation was led by its «Minister of Foreign Affairs», Mohamed Sidati. Notably, the delegation's seating arrangement remained unchanged from the previous day, positioned between Zambia and Zimbabwe. This time, the Polisario's presence did not provoke any incidents.

The SPS agency published a dispatch with photos of Sidati greeting members of the Zimbabwe delegation. Japan has consistently rejected the Polisario's participation in TICAD summits. This rejection has been formally communicated to the African Union and host countries of TICAD sessions, such as Tunisia in August 2022. A Japanese official document addressed to the AU Commission specified that only invited states, co-signed by the Japanese Prime Minister and the host country's president, are authorized to participate in TICAD summits.

Algeria has attempted to impose Polisario representatives at TICAD summits held on Japanese territory. The presence of a Polisario delegation at the TICAD ministerial meeting in Yokohama in October 2018 is evidence of this.

In response to this fait accompli, the former Japanese Foreign Minister clarified that the presence of an unrecognized entity in the meeting room does not imply implicit or explicit recognition as a state.

Algeria avoids using similar tactics with other partners like Russia, China, the United States, Italy, Turkey, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia. Algiers focuses on imposing the Polisario's presence only at partnership summits with Japan and the European Union. Due to the Polisario's presence, many Arab countries boycotted the Arab League-African Union meetings, with the last session held in December 2016 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.