On 10 September, the Algerian government announced the severance of diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates, ordering Abu Dhabi’s ambassador to leave the country within 48 hours. Shortly afterwards, Algiers also ordered the closure of its airspace to all government flights, while granting a waiver until the end of the year for commercial flights.
This is a decidedly drastic measure which, however, comes against the backdrop of a period of growing bilateral tensions that, in a sense, makes Algeria’s decision appear to have been anticipated for some time.
The Algerian government provided no detailed explanation for the measure, merely stating that the decision had been taken in response to “provocative and hostile actions” and “conduct that had reached unacceptable limits”. The official statement therefore appears not to refer to any specific event, but rather to a progressive deterioration in relations that Algiers has deemed no longer capable of being repaired or sustained.
The crisis in relations between Algeria and the United Arab Emirates has deep roots and can historically be traced back to 2020, when the UAE announced its accession to the Abraham Accords, normalising relations with Israel while simultaneously recognising Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. Abu Dhabi subsequently opened a consulate in the city of Laayoune. The Algerian government interpreted this decision as an unequivocally hostile stance on the part of the Emirates.
In reality, however, relations between the two countries had already entered a critical phase over the Libyan crisis, in which Algiers and Abu Dhabi respectively supported the political factions based in Tripoli and Benghazi. At the same time, the entire Sahel region has experienced a progressive deterioration in security conditions and political stability, resulting in institutional changes and military crises that have seen a significant expansion of the role and influence of the United Arab Emirates in an area that Algeria regards as its own “security backyard”.
Algeria views the UAE’s growing activism in Mali and Sudan as interference capable of altering regional security dynamics, with direct repercussions for national security and the wider instability of the region. Algiers has accused the Abu Dhabi government of adopting a dangerous posture that is likely to further exacerbate instability across the Sahel.
No less sensitive for Algiers is the issue of relations between Israel and the UAE, given Algeria’s increasingly outspoken condemnation of Israeli conduct in Gaza and across the region, accompanied by increasingly strident rhetoric.
The most recent episode of tension prior to the severance of diplomatic relations came on 7 February, when Algeria decided to initiate the procedure for terminating the bilateral air services agreement between the two countries, signed in 2013. Last July, meanwhile, President Abdelmajid Tebboune gave a televised interview in which, without explicitly naming the UAE, he referred to “micro-states that destabilise the region, and wherever they set foot, blood flows”.
The announcement of the severance of diplomatic relations therefore comes at the culmination of a prolonged period of crisis and is not justified by a single, clearly identifiable episode of tension. Rather, there are at least three principal issues that currently shape the context of the crisis between the two countries.
The first, and certainly the most sensitive, concerns Western Sahara and the UAE’s position in support of Rabat’s sovereignty. For Algiers, this choice represents a clear alignment of positions within the broader and historically entrenched competition between Morocco and Algeria for an unlikely regional supremacy in the Maghreb.
The second issue concerns the normalisation of diplomatic relations between the UAE and Israel, which Algeria regards as a deliberate betrayal of the Palestinian cause and, within the context of increasingly close military cooperation between Tel Aviv and Rabat, as a direct threat to regional balances and Algeria’s strategic interests.
The third reason lies in the Sahel region, which Algeria regards as the geographical area of greatest importance to its security and where it accuses the UAE of pursuing an increasingly expansive policy of interference, based on support for specific factions and aimed at maintaining a persistent destabilising posture. In this context, moreover, Algeria makes no secret of accusing the UAE of supporting Kabyle separatist movements in the country’s north-eastern Berber region. Algeria designates these movements as terrorist organisations and consequently regards the alleged Emirati support for them as a direct threat to national security.
The reaction of the Abu Dhabi government to the announcement of the severance of diplomatic relations was instead measured and deliberately low-key. It was conveyed through a restrained statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which stressed the importance for the UAE of maintaining friendly relations with all countries and expressed the hope that Algeria’s decision would remain temporary.
The tone was somewhat different in the comments made by the Emirati presidential diplomatic adviser and former minister, Anwar Gargash, who stated that international relations “should be based on rationality, communication and clarity of interests, rather than ambiguous signals”. His remarks amounted to an indirect and implicit criticism of the Algerian government and of the way in which the crisis has been managed.
The Emirates thus appear neither interested nor inclined to escalate the crisis, which, in their assessment, is not rooted in a bilateral conflict as such, but rather represents a collateral manifestation of the deeply entrenched rivalry between Morocco and Algeria. This is a context that falls outside Abu Dhabi’s interests and one in which the UAE has no intention of becoming directly involved.
The severance of relations, however, despite the asymmetry in the reactions of the two sides, is not without systemic consequences. It risks producing repercussions for the balance of power in North Africa and the Sahel, where Algeria and the UAE remain actors with competing interests across several theatres of crisis simultaneously. It could also affect economic and energy relations between North Africa and the Gulf, which have historically been more limited but are by no means negligible.
It remains to be seen whether the diplomatic rupture will translate into a prolonged period of isolation or whether, as suggested by the Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself, it will prove to be a transitional phase destined to be gradually overcome. Such a dynamic would not be unprecedented in relations between Arab states whose regional outlooks and strategic priorities diverge.
