Information concerning the true purposes of the Algerian president’s travel to Portugal started to emerge. Tebboune reached the Moroccan desert on an unannounced visit, met with his Portuguese colleague there, and discussed “consensus of visions between the two parties on the issue.”
Despite Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s denial that Portugal’s position on the Moroccan Sahara issue has changed—a denial he had previously made during the bilateral summit between Rabat and Barcelona—Tebboune instead sought to discuss the existence of a consensus between the two countries on the issue and to include Lisbon in his thesis.