Algeria shut the border in 1994 when Morocco imposed entry
visas requirements on Algerians in the wake of a gun attack in the Moroccan
city of Marrakesh. Prickly relations have kept it shut ever since, hampering
trade flows across north Africa.
A series of high-level visits by Moroccan and Algerian
officials in the past few weeks prompted local media, and some Western
diplomats, to say the border could be reopened soon.
“The opening of the border is not on the agenda,” Ouyahia
told a news conference in the Algerian capital. “At the moment there is not a
good climate for re-establishing trust.”
The border, which runs 1,559 km from the Mediterranean Sea
to the Sahara desert, has been closed several times since 1962, when Algeria
followed Morocco in winning independence from France.
The two countries are in dispute over Western Sahara, a
former Spanish colony which Morocco annexed in 1975. Algeria supports Western
Saharan independence movement the Polisario Front, a stance that angers
Morocco.
Morocco said when it shut the border in 1994 it suspected
the gunmen in the attack, who killed two Spaniards in a Marrakesh hotel, had
ties to Algeria.
