Algerian Army General Saïd Chanegriha, Delegate Minister to the Minister of National Defense and Chief of Staff of the People’s National Army, said on Monday that Algeria consistently affirms the responsibility of African countries to strengthen the foundations of their national power and consolidate their sovereign resilience, enabling them to collectively contribute to building a secure and stable African space, based on mutual respect, solidarity, and mutually beneficial interrelations, away from the logic of dependency or subordination.
In an address he delivered while presiding over a national conference on “The Algerian approach to building security and peace in Africa,” Army General Saïd Chanegriha noted that the security challenges in Africa are no longer merely the result of internal factors alone; rather, they are influenced by the intersection of external agendas that have turned some African crises into open arenas for reshaping the balance of power and extending influence.
In these arenas, “considerations of power, resources, and strategic locations intersect within a struggle that is silent in appearance, but deep in its stakes and multi-dimensional in its tools,” he said, adding that the complexity of this situation increases in regions of high geopolitical sensitivity, where internal conflicts are exploited by external calculations that seek to take advantage of structural weaknesses in state systems, along with the accompanying political divisions. This is done in order to reshape realities, sometimes by creating parallel entities, or by promoting secessionist paths, or by conferring de facto legitimacy on arrangements that do not enjoy national or regional consensus.
“Through this symposium, we aim to outline the main features of a proposed Algerian approach to building peace and security in Africa, based on clear principles and grounded in a coherent and integrated vision of African relations,” General Saïd Chanegriha noted.
He emphasized that “this comes in line with the major orientations of Algerian foreign policy in its African dimension, as emphasized by Mr. Abdelmadjid Tebboune, President of the Republic, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and Minister of National Defence, such as the need to establish the foundations of balanced partnerships and joint African action, to reject imposed external solutions, to prioritize dialogue, and to respect the sovereignty of states.”
