Algerian Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian have tackled the Libyan crisis and its repercussions on security in the Maghreb and the Mediterranean Basin, Algerian diplomatic sources said.
During a meeting they held in Algiers on Thursday on the sidelines of the sixth session of the Mixed Commission for Economic Cooperation, the ministers discussed bilateral economic ties.
Spokesperson for the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Abdelaziz Benali Cherif revealed in a statement that the one-day meeting was an opportunity for both countries to discuss progress on economic and commercial cooperation.
Cooperation mainly covers bilateral partnership ventures in the automobile and pharmaceutical industries, agriculture, food industry, technology, and tourism, he said.
Benali added that Boukadoum and Le Drian will discuss international and regional developments, namely the Libyan crisis, the Western Sahara, the conditions on the coast and Mali, as well as the latest developments in the Middle East and the coronavirus outbreak.
There are other topics of mutual concern between Algeria and France that are no less important, including the 1968 agreement on the freedom of movement, which Algeria demands to be revised.
Further, some Algerian associations have repeatedly asked France for an official apology for Algeria’s war and its colonialist crimes. However, France is yet to apologize although it has admitted that occupying Algeria was oppressing and painful.
Also Thursday, the Public Prosecution in the capital ordered a one-year jail term and a fine for 80-year-old activist Lakhdar Bouregaa on charges of “weakening the army's morale."
Last summer, he was placed in provisional detention, but was released four months later after his health deteriorated.
The charge was made against Bouregaa by late General Ahmed Gaid Salah when the former described the army as “militias.”
