Assahafa.com
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s recent trip to Italy has turned into a diplomatic embarrassment. While he claimed from Rome that Italy unreservedly supported the “inalienable right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination,” the official statement issued at the conclusion of the fifth session of the Italy-Algeria intergovernmental summit strongly contradicts this version of events, according to the daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia in its Friday, July 25 edition.
At the end of their discussions, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Tebboune gave statements summarizing the key topics covered. True to form, Tebboune hastily praised what he called complete alignment between Algiers and Rome on several sensitive political issues, starting with the Sahara question.
In his remarks, Tebboune claimed that Italy supported “the efforts of the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy to achieve a just political solution, in accordance with international law, allowing the Sahrawi people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination.”
But the truth is far less flattering to the Algerian narrative. The joint communiqué released by the Italian Prime Minister’s office is unambiguous. Point 29 is crystal clear:
“Regarding Western Sahara, the two parties reaffirm their support for the efforts of the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, Staffan de Mistura, to relaunch direct negotiations and to achieve a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and the relevant Security Council resolutions.”
There is no explicit mention, then, of any so-called right to self-determination—despite Tebboune’s repeated claims. Moreover, Giorgia Meloni, during her press conference, deliberately avoided discussing the Sahara issue, instead emphasizing the crises in the Sahel and Libya.
This clarification is far from trivial. Italy has previously affirmed its balanced stance on the matter. In July 2023, during a meeting between Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita and his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani, Rome praised Morocco’s “serious and credible efforts” to reach a realistic, lasting, and mutually acceptable solution, in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2654, adopted in October 2022—a resolution Algeria rejected, Al Ahdath Al Maghribia recalls.
With this latest development, Italy reaffirms its position: supporting the UN-led process and encouraging all parties to engage in good faith in a pragmatic, compromise-driven approach. For Algiers, the disappointment is twofold. Not only is President Tebboune directly contradicted—black on white—by a document he himself signed, but he also breaks with standard diplomatic protocol by making public statements that blatantly contradict an official agreement.
This lie turns what was meant to be a charm offensive in Europe into a full-blown diplomatic embarrassment.
