Link: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/22/algeria-closes-airspace-to-all-moroccan-planes
On Wednesday September 22, 2021 Alegria closed their airspace to Morocco and Moroccan planes. The order came from the head of the high security council. The shut down is due to a dispute between Algeria and Morocco over the western Sahara. The statement from Algeria was about all of the aircrafts that would be affected “All civilian and military aircrafts as well as those registered to Morocco”. The exact reason for the shut down is the belief that Morocco is provoking and that there are hostile practices taking place on the Moroccan side of things.
This is important because this could cause a new conflict in north africa or the add on to an existing conflict. Morocco has had past conflicts in the western sahara. For example the Western Sahara conflict that took place in the early 1970’s and is still somewhat persistent today. It was from insurgencies that came from the Polisario Front. Considering that land borders have been closed between the two countries since the 1990’s due to Algeria’s same reasoning of security. With the new border and aircraft shutdowns the whole situation will result in a downward spiral of relations between the two countries.
This relates to international relations because it is a conflict between the security of two sovereign states. We talked about inner conflicts between countries that can sometimes be disguised as one conflict when it’s a completely different thing. Like here I think that it is about insurgencies taking place in the western sahara and it’s just Algeria not wanting to be involved with it. This is almost now the complete shutdown of two countries bordering each other. This could heavily affect the trade and commerce within these two countries if they have reliance on products between countries.