Morocco's consul in Oran : Algeria sticks to its guns

After Morocco’s Foreign Affairs Minister denied Algeria’s claims on the Moroccan consul, who was recalled by Rabat after a controversial video, Algiers said that it is committed to its version of the story. On Thursday, the Algerian Foreign Ministry insisted one more time that the Moroccan diplomat left at its request.

«The government’s action to denounce the serious gaffe of the Moroccan Consul General in Oran and to call on the Moroccan side, in unequivocal terms, to take the necessary measures, cannot have another meaning or interpretation but that of his recall by his country», said Thursday the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Abdelaziz Benali Cherif.

The official thus refers to a press release published by his department following the convocation of the kingdom's ambassador in Algiers on May 13.

The «request of the Algerian side» regarding the recall of the consul «was reiterated in clear and direct terms during the telephone conversations that took place between the foreign ministers of the two countries», the official revealed.

Nasser Bourita stressed Tuesday, that he had taken the initiative to call his Algerian counterpart, to tell him that, whatever the veracity of the words attributed to the consul, Morocco had decided to recall him immediately.

For the record, the spokesperson’s remarks come as a response to a viral video that showed the Moroccan diplomat calling Algeria an «enemy country» when talking to a group of Moroccans that had been stranded in Algeria over the coronavirus lockdown. The diplomat left Oran weeks later.