Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is having a “deadly” impact in the Arab world, particularly through spiralling wheat prices, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Algiers Wednesday.
He was speaking on the final leg of a trip that began with an unprecedented Israeli-Arab summit in the Negev desert, attended by Blinken and the foreign ministers of Israel, Egypt and three Arab countries that normalised ties with the Jewish state in 2020.
Import-dependent North African countries face what Blinken described as a “disaster” as the war in Ukraine sends shock-waves through global wheat and fuel markets. Both Russia and Ukraine are major wheat producers, while Moscow is a major global supplier of oil and gas.
The Russian military campaign has had “deadly consequences for citizens in the region”, he told journalists in the capital of Algeria.
“It’s having a direct impact on their lives right now, particularly with regard to rising food prices… especially wheat,” he said.
Blinken flew in Wednesday morning from Algeria’s arch-rival Morocco, which in 2020 normalised ties with Israel under a deal that sparked renewed tensions between Algiers and Rabat over the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
Blinken met Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune after holding talks with Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra, during his first visit as top US diplomat to the North African country.
Relations between Washington and Algiers soured as a result of Morocco’s normalisation deal with key US ally Israel brokered under then president Donald Trump.
As a quid pro quo, the Trump administration recognised Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, a phosphate-rich desert territory where Algeria has long backed the Polisario independence movement.
Blinken on Wednesday reiterated Washington’s support for United Nations efforts to find a solution to that conflict.
“We’re very focused on diplomacy and on advancing a resolution through diplomacy,” he said.
In Morocco on Tuesday, Blinken had voiced support for a Moroccan autonomy plan for the Western Sahara, which he described as “serious, credible and realistic”.
Before his stop in Algiers, state department official Yael Lempert said Blinken was to “discuss regional security and stability, commercial cooperation and advancing human rights”.
Blinken earlier this week attended an unprecedented summit in Israel, attended by the foreign ministers of Morocco, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Bahrain and the UAE were the other countries to strike normalisation deals with Israel in the last months of the Trump administration.
Israel was keen to cast that summit as an alliance of powers against its arch-foe Iran — the UAE has lately come under cross-border missile and drone attack from Yemen’s Iran backed Huthi rebels.
Israel is fighting a regional shadow war against Iran and accuses it of seeking a nuclear bomb, a goal the Islamic republic denies pursuing.
But the Jewish state has in recent days been contending with more immediate security concerns.
Several deadly gun and knife attacks have struck Israel over the past week or so, the latest of which was a shooting spree late Tuesday near Tel Aviv that killed five people.
“This violence is unacceptable,” Blinken said in a statement. “Israelis — like all people around the world — should be able to live in peace and without fear.”