Tripoli, 8 May:
Algeria’s ambassador to Libya was summoned to the foreign ministry yesterday to explain remarks made by Algerian Prime Minister . . .[restrict]Ahmed Ouyahia after he described the Arab Spring as a disaster. The remarks were made on Saturday at a political meeting in Algiers.
Ouyahia, who is campaigning for elections on 10 May, warned his citizens to be “on the alert” for developments along the lines of the Arab Spring, which he said had “led to the occupation of Iraq, the destruction of Libya, the division of Sudan and the weakening of Egypt”.
Under President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been in office since 1989, Algeria has witnessed only halting political reforms and remained comparatively unscathed by last year’s regional uprisings.
Libya’s foreign ministry has spoken of its “surprise and condemnation” of the remarks.
Algeria’s foreign ministry spokesman Ammar Belani has sought to diffuse the row by insisting the Ouyahia was speaking in his capacity as leader of the National Rally for Democracy (RND) party, saying that his statement did not represent the official position of the state of Algeria.
“The Libyan government should differentiate between the positions of the party chairman and the attitudes of the Algerian state”, he said.
Speaking to the Algerian newspaper Echorouk Al-Youmi, member of the RND national office Chihab Sadik added that in his opinion, the Libyan government’s protests were “exaggerated”. He said that Ouyahia’s speech was directed at Algerians, not Libyans, and was intended to warn them of “foreign conspiracies that targeted several Arab countries”.
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