Newly appointed Algerian Foreign Affairs Minister Ramtane Lamamra attends a press conference with his Canadian counterpart at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Algiers on September 15, 2013. (FAROUK BATICHE/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]When Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria’s long-serving president, announced a cabinet reshuffle last month, nobody expected any surprises. But his new appointee as foreign minister, Ramtane Lamamra, a respected career diplomat and former ambassador to Washington, took up his new role on September 11 and has been winning plaudits ever since. As well as his impressive connections in the US and his English language skills, he has a serious background in African affairs, having spent years working inside the African Union. In short, he has the practical experience, diplomatic connections, and innate talent to help Algeria navigate its precarious position as the only republican regime in North Africa not toppled by the Arab Spring.
At the UN General Assembly in New York on September 26, Lamamra gave a well-received speech laying out Algeria’s position on good governance and regional security. Insiders noted that the new minister managed to rack up an impressive list of interlocutors at the meet-and-greet sessions outside the main action. As the Algerian media was quick to report, Lamamra—after only a fortnight in the job—was already rubbing shoulders not just with Barack Obama and John Kerry, but also with National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Under-Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and UN Special Envoy to the Western Sahara Christopher Ross, not to mention the British foreign secretary William Hague and the ever-present Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.
The meetings in the corridors of the UN building were not happenstance. As usual, they were heavily choreographed to mark the appointment of Lamamra as Algeria’s foreign minister as an improvement in Algeria’s relationships with the West at a time when the world’s leaders are in no rush to see another North African state destabilized. Under his predecessor, the hapless Mourad Medelci, Algerian diplomacy veered between policy missteps and embarrassing public gaffes. Medelci was humiliated earlier this year when France, normally a staunch Algerian ally, overcame initial Algerian protests and led a successful military intervention to oust Al-Qaeda fighters from northern Mali. He had already become a laughing stock back in 2010, when he was stopped and searched by over-zealous customs officials at Washington’s Dulles Airport. Medelci had arrived in the US on an official visit, and the unprompted pat-down quickly resulted in an unseemly shouting match. The following year, the Qatari foreign minister, Hamid Bin Jassim Al Thani, was said to have interrupted a speech by Medelci, widely seen as a pro-Assad figure, at a summit of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo, to tell him to “stop protecting Syria, because you’ll be next.” Both incidents were later denied, but the reputational damage was done. Algeria’s diplomats, housed in their plush new ministry building in a smart suburb overlooking Algiers, must be breathing a sigh of relief now that Lamamra, a real diplomat’s diplomat, is finally holding the reins.
But Lamamra has not inherited a bed of roses. Two major challenges confront Algerian diplomacy: Syria and, above all, the crisis in the Sahel. On Syria, Lamamra has to advocate a negotiated solution and at the same time maintain good relations with the US and the new interventionist power of François Hollande’s France, buoyed up by successes in Libya in 2011 and Mali in 2013. Perhaps even more serious is the security crisis in the Sahel, traditionally seen as Algeria’s backyard. In recent years, Algeria’s influence has progressively deteriorated in the region. The removal of Algeria’s erstwhile ally, Muammar Gaddafi, in the 2011 Libyan uprisings weakened its control, a trend brought home by the attack by an Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb splinter group on the In Amenas gas facility near the Libyan border. Moreover, for many Algerians, the failure of the country’s Saharan policy was epitomized by the kidnapping of seven Algerian diplomats in Mali last year. Three were later freed and one executed; the others remain as hostages held by the militants. Unless Algeria can reassert its former role as pre-eminent in the region, no amount of networking can cover up this credibility issue. Even as the glad-handing in New York is over, it seems that the real test for Lamamra’s new-look diplomacy will be much closer to home.
All views expressed in this blog post are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, The Majalla magazine.
