HIBAPRESS
In a statement that sparked widespread ridicule, Algerian politician Nourredine Boukrouh called on Morocco to pay financial compensation to Algeria for the "billions" it spent on the Polisario Front over fifty years.
This demand came in an article published by Boukrouh, which appeared more like a bank statement than a political analysis, where he considered that the funds spent by Algeria to support the separatist project should be counted as "debts" on Morocco, especially after the Sahara file was resolved in favor of Rabat through the self-governance proposal. According to the logic of the article, Algeria's spending of huge amounts of money in order to oppose Morocco's territorial integrity was not a hostile political act, but a long-term investment that did not succeed, which justifies – in the opinion of its author – demanding that the "targeted party" pay the losses. Observers commented sarcastically on the proposal, considering it a precedent in international relations, as no country had previously demanded that its neighbor compensate it for financing a project with extreme separatist goals that did not achieve its goals. In contrast, followers saw that Boukrouh's statement reflects an indirect acknowledgment of the impasse of the Polisario project, and the transition of the discussion from "political legitimacy" to "how much did we spend and who will pay."
