In what analysts are describing as a significant departure from Algiers’ longstanding public posture, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune stated in a televised address broadcast on Saturday April 2 by Algeria’s state broadcaster that UN Security Council Resolution 2797 on Western Sahara “is making its way.” The formulation — understated by design — carries substantial diplomatic weight: by affirming that the resolution is progressing, Tebboune effectively acknowledged that the implementation of a solution based on Moroccan sovereignty over the territory has become “ineluctable,” said Le360 in an analysis published on Sunday.
The statement marks a break with the position Tebboune had maintained as recently as a few months earlier, when he had publicly declared that Algeria would never abandon the Polisario’s cause as long as the front held to the principle of self-determination. Resolution 2797, adopted by the UN Security Council on October 31, 2025, explicitly endorses the Moroccan autonomy plan as the basis for a political settlement under Moroccan sovereignty. Algeria, which was a non-permanent Security Council member at the time, chose the policy of the empty chair rather than cast a lone dissenting vote or abstain — a posture that Morocco’s diplomacy has consistently characterized as an implicit acknowledgement of the resolution’s force.
The broader context of Tebboune’s remarks is significant. His address also included notably warm language toward U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who had recently visited Algiers and Rabat. Tebboune described himself as “touched by the sympathy in words and gestures” of the American envoy, and suggested that the ideological differences between Algiers and Washington now belong to the past. The Le360 analysis reads this effusiveness as a reflection of the firmness of the message Landau delivered on the Sahara dossier during his trip to Algiers.
The Sahara portion of Tebboune’s broadcast was abruptly cut, shifting without transition to the Palestinian file, a detail noted by observers as suggestive of internal sensitivity around the subject. The regime’s position has been further weakened by the wave of recognition withdrawals from the Polisario-administered self-proclaimed entity: Honduras joined Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama, and Mali in suspending or withdrawing recognition within the past two months, while Morocco’s autonomy plan now enjoys the backing of more than 110 UN member states including all five permanent Security Council members.
The Le360 commentary frames the evolution with directness: Algeria is being “forced toward pragmatism” by the combined weight of U.S. determination to bring the dossier to a close, the diplomatic isolation of the Polisario, and the deteriorating security situation in the Sahel — a region where Algeria’s own influence has contracted sharply following the political transitions in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. The prospect of a structured and negotiated dismantlement of the Tindouf camps, the analysis suggests, is no longer a theoretical horizon but a scenario that Algiers has begun to contemplate, “de gré ou de force.”