State television said the decision came "following the exhaustion of all means to preserve bilateral relations," signalling that talks and routine diplomatic channels have been closed after years of mounting strain. Algerian authorities framed the move as a response to what they described as Abu Dhabi's interference in national and regional affairs.
President Abdelmajid Tebboune has repeatedly criticised the UAE in public statements, characterising it as a "micro-state" or "statelet" and accusing its policies of destabilising countries across the region. In a televised interview in July he said, "Wherever they set foot, blood flows," and that the UAE had had a "very negative impact." He added, "We want them to stay away, so that blood does not flow in our country."
Tebboune also told audiences that a rupture in relations "would have happened long ago" if Algeria had not sought to avoid "deepening divisions" in the Arab world. Those remarks, repeated by state media in its announcement, framed the diplomatic break as both punitive and preventive from Algiers' perspective.
The immediate practical consequence is the removal of the UAE's ambassador from Algiers within the 48-hour window specified by Algerian authorities. That step terminates formal, embassy-level diplomacy between the two governments and erases the main institutional pathways for managing bilateral disputes, consular matters and any existing cooperation.
Algeria presented the severing of ties as the end point of a prolonged effort to salvage relations. The government’s language links the move to broader regional tensions and portrays it as a defensive response to alleged external interference. The announcement did not detail further measures or a timetable for possible mediation or restoration of contacts, leaving the next diplomatic moves and any response from Abu Dhabi unreported in the statement.
