Secrets of Sanchez’s Letter to Mohammed VI Regarding Western Sahara

It seems that the curse of Algeria will continue to haunt the outgoing Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, until his last days in the Government Palace (Moncloa), and it is not excluded that it will contribute to ending his career at the head of the executive apparatus. This is what has become expected according to many political observers in Spain and among its southern neighbours too.

In a very sensitive circumstance, and while the electoral campaign for the Spanish legislative elections, scheduled for July 23, is at its height, the outgoing Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, received a new blow that may eliminate his hopes of overcoming his defeat in the local and regional elections that took place last May in the next legislative elections.

Pedro Sanchez’s letter addressed to the King of the Moroccan Makhzen regime, Mohammed VI, on March 14, 2022, returned to the fore, casting a shadow over the fate of the head of the Madrid government again after more than 15 months of controversy, revealing once again a new, old, resounding scandal in which Sanchez was involved.

In this regard, the Spanish newspaper “El Debate”, which had previously delved into the case of this letter and what it conceals, revealed that “the director of the Technical and Legal Coordination Department at the Presidency of the Spanish Government, Beatriz Perez Rodriguez, confessed in a document with the serial number 00001-00079114, signed in on June 16, 2023, the Moncloa Palace does not know who wrote the letter, not how, nor even when the “controversial” letter was sent, which shook the Spanish political centre and introduced Algerian-Spanish relations into an unprecedented crisis.

The Director of Technical Coordination at the Presidency of the Spanish Government admitted that at the level of the Presidency of the Government, “no document or content is attesting to the date and the means of delivery of the letter to the Moroccan Makhzen regime, nor even information about the authority or official who ordered and effected such surrender”, according to the same source.

The Spanish newspaper confirms that, based on the request it submitted to the Transparency and Good Governance Council, which is a public and independent body, established in 2014, it called on the Sanchez government last April to send the original letter, which Sanchez tried to cover up, to the newspaper, which is supposed to be written in French from the Spanish government to the King of Morocco.

It is known that this letter included Sanchez’s support for the autonomy plan proposed by the Moroccan Makhzen regime in occupied Western Sahara, in a deviation from Madrid’s historical neutrality on this issue, which caused, as is known, Algeria’s decision to suspend the Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighborliness with Madrid, after which bilateral relations entered in a crisis that caused great damage to the Spanish economy until today, despite Spanish appeals to the European Union to support Madrid’s position, but to no avail.

Although the scandal is not new, the opposition seized the opportunity and used it perfectly to support its strong chances in the legislative elections, which are less than three weeks away.

Esteban Gonzalez Pons, expected to become foreign minister in the new government that may lead the Spanish Popular Party to power after it won the local and regional elections less than two months ago, pledged in a tweet that his party would reopen the file of this scandal, and in the deviation of the Spanish position from the Western Saharan cause.

The political elites in the Moroccan Makhzen regime see Esteban Gonzalez Pons as the number one enemy of their country, because of his assertion that the Popular Party will correct Sanchez’s mistake and correct his country’s policy with Algeria after he will lead the government this summer, as expected.

Following this development, the accusations returned to the Spanish government again at the height of the electoral campaign, as stated by the leader of the Popular Party and MP Maria Carmen Navarro, who denounced what she considered one of the biggest scandals in Spanish foreign policy, and said that Sanchez and his Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares “did not present any explanations on this subject,” as is the case with the candidate of the Popular Party in occupied Melilla, for the Senate in the upcoming legislative elections on July 23, Isabel Moreno, who said that “the letter was written in Rabat and signed in Madrid.”

Former Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar, did not fail to delve into the scandal again and said in a press statement: “It is inconceivable that the head of government sends a letter badly translated into French, it’s a personal letter to the King of Morocco, which was neither discussed in the Council of Ministers nor the Chamber of Deputies and that changes more than 40-years of Spain’s policy and responsibilities”.