Rome/ Nova Agency
The Algerian ambassador to Rome, Abdelkrim Touahrieh, emphasizes his country’s readiness to cut off natural gas supplies to Spain if the latter did not respect the agreements between them, the Italian Nova news agency reported.
If Spain decides to re-export the gas it buys from Algeria to third countries, Algeria may, in turn, stop supplies to Madrid,” Touahariya said, in an interview with Nova Agency, to be published in full next Monday.
Touahrieh continued, “Algeria issued an official statement in which it stated that if Spain re-exports gas to other countries, Algeria will not fulfill its obligations, because Spain will be the first to choose not to respect them.”
On April 27, the Algerian Ministry of Energy announced that “any quantity of Algerian gas exported from Spain to destinations other than those referred to in the contracts will be considered a breach of contractual obligations, and thus could lead to a unilateral termination of previous agreements.”
The Algerians never mentioned this, but the “third country” in question may be Morocco, with which Algeria severed diplomatic relations.
On the other hand, Spain recently returned to contact with Rabat, especially after the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, defined the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara as “the most serious, credible and realistic basis” for resolving the conflict.
Touahrieh continued, “The head of the Spanish government has changed Spain’s traditional position (on Western Sahara). We don’t know why, but we can imagine it. I want to say that we have no problems with the Spanish people.”
Yesterday, Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Teresa Ribera Rodriguez, Minister of Environmental Transformation, said in an interview with Nova Agency on the sidelines of the 12th edition of the “State of the Union” conference in the Italian city of Fiesole, that her country is not afraid of stopping gas supplies from Algeria.
“We would like to have better relations than the current ones. We are not afraid of Algeria’s (gas) interruption, but we certainly hope that things will improve,” she added.
