 The conflict over the Sahara "depends only on the Algerian regime which fuels it in an artificial and very expensive way", said director general of the Observatory for geopolitical studies (OEG), Charles Saint-Prot.
"It is time for the Algerian regime to reconsider its anti-Moroccan obsession and move towards ending support for the separatist plot," insisted Saint-Prot in an interview with Tunisian weekly "The Expert" to be issued on Thursday.
He stressed that the international community should now put strong pressure on Algiers to end a crisis that is only the residue of the Cold War.
The researcher explained that Algiers must understand that "diplomacy is not based on hatred".
He recalled that this is an artificial conflict created from scratch by the Algerian regime and the communist bloc in the mid-1970s, noting that the Moroccan Sahara should have naturally returned to the Moroccan motherland after the departure of the Spanish colonizers which followed the Green March in November 1975 and marked the end of colonization.
"It was at this time that Algeria and the communist bloc launched the separatist group -Polisario- which has never been recognized as a national liberation movement, which is quite normal since it did not participate in the fight against the Spanish occupier, given that it is just a puppet of the Algerian regime", said the researcher.
He noted that "the blindness of the Algerian regime is truly fossilized in a Soviet-like mindset."
He also described the relations between Morocco and Tunisia as excellent, because they are "two serious, competent and wise countries".
"Of course, there is a kind of economic competition but this can be overcome", he said, stressing that "the responsibility of the Algerian regime is enormous because the country does impede Maghreb cooperation".
He said that this "artificial" conflict over the Moroccan Sahara is only "a pretext for the Algerian leaders who are hostile to a large market, with rules and transparency which would put the spotlight on their corruption and the true Soviet nature of their system.
On the Libyan issue, Saint-Prot underlined the efforts of "wise states", such as Tunisia or Morocco, to find a solution to the crisis.
In this regard, the researcher recalled the recent statements by Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Abroad, Nasser Bourita in which he underlined that the inter-Libyan dialogue of Bouznika (Sept.6-10) confirms that Libyans simply need honest dialogue facilitators and are able to resolve their issues without supervision or influence.
Inter-Libyan discussions have progressed, said the expert, noting that the African Union, the European Union, France, the United States, many Latin American countries and Turkey welcomed the holding of this meeting, and Morocco's positive role in initiating a process in line with the 2015 Shkirat agreement and under the UN aegis.
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