Morocco-Algeria reconciliation: A broader challenge than the Sahara dispute

The two countries share a closed border for over thirty years, a common language, and intertwined families, yet their relationship has been marked by distrust for six decades. Key events include the 1963 Sand War, the 1994 border closure, Algeria's 2021 diplomatic rupture, and the reintroduction of visa requirements for Moroccan nationals in 2024. The researchers argue that the rivalry extends beyond the Sahara dispute and bilateral antagonism, stemming from competing memories, securitization mechanisms, legitimation strategies, and regional costs.

They propose viewing the relationship through the lens of reconciliation, as understood in peace studies, rather than an endless dispute. The report critiques traditional analyses—realist, juridico-diplomatic, and economic—as insufficient. It introduces Johan Galtung's distinction between negative peace cessation of open violence and positive peace transformation of structures reproducing hostility, emphasizing that reconciliation aims for deeper changes in perceptions and relational mechanisms.

The authors note that Morocco and Algeria are not emerging from civil war or a political transition, so the concept of reconciliation must be conditional and attentive to power dynamics. Three decades of