Algeria will honour its commitment to deliver gas to Spain, but it is up to Spanish firms to assume their contractual commitments, a foreign affairs statement said.
Algeria has condemned the EU reaction with regard to the crisis between Algeria and Spain without prior consultation and verification with the Algerian government, the statement added.
Spain’s government had said it regretted Algeria’s decision and reaffirmed its commitment to the friendship treaty.
“The Spanish government regards Algeria as a friendly neighbour country and restates its complete readiness to keep and develop the special cooperation relationship between our two countries, to the benefit of the people of both,” a Spanish foreign ministry statement said.
The Algerian statement said Spain was abusing its role as an “administrating power” in Western Sahara until the United Nations sorts out the decades-old situation over the status of the vast, mineral-rich territory.
It is, therefore, “contributing directly to the degradation of the situation in the Western Sahara and the region”, the president’s office said.
