Iran and Morocco’s soccer teams took the field in St. Petersburg Friday for a World Cup match-up that comes amid worsening relations between the two governments.
The two nations began butting heads this spring after Morocco, on May 1, announced plans to close Iran’s embassy in its capital city of Rabat. Morocco also ordered its ambassador, Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, to return from Tehran, Iran’s capital.
Morocco said the move was in response to Iran’s support for a group known as the Polisario Front, an independence movement based out of Western Sahara.
The West African nation had claimed the region after Spain pulled out, but the effort was complicated after Polisario tried to gain independence for the Sahrawi people.
Most recently, Bourita told reporters Iran and Hezbollah were helping Polisario through Iran’s Algerian embassy by giving them weapons, including surface-to-air missiles.
The issue became more complicated following Algeria’s participation because of the turbulent diplomatic history it’s had with its western neighbor.
Morocco went before the United Nations in April to describe what it said was an enhanced effort by Algeria to help Polisario secure land it believed fell under its jurisdiction.
