New blow: Algeria ends 2-decade friendship treaty with Spain

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Algeria has announced it is “immediately” suspending a two-decades-old friendship treaty with Spain. It was the latest blow to increasingly wobbly relations between the governments in Algiers and Madrid. Spain depends on Algeria for its natural gas supply. Tensions have soared in a complex three-way dispute after Spain apparently backed Morocco’s position over the disputed Western Sahara territory. Algeria backs the Polisario independence movement which has rejected Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara. The statement by Algeria’s presidential office criticized what it said was the “unjustifiable turnaround” in March on Spain’s position on Western Sahara.