Tunisia will resume diplomatic relations with Syria
Tunisian President Kais Saied announced Friday evening that he intends to restore diplomatic relations with Syria, interrupted since 2012. “Nothing can justify the absence of a Tunisian ambassador in Damascus and a Syrian ambassador in Tunis,” said President Saied in a meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs Nabil Ammar, according to a video recording published on the official website of the Presidency. President Saied further rejected any interference in the affairs of other countries, stressing that the issue of the Syrian government “is an internal matter that concerns only the Syrians.”
In the opinion of President Saied, “the issue of the regime in Syria concerns only the Syrians”, refusing any interference in the affairs and “choices” of others. In February, President Kais Saied already expressed his intention to “strengthen the diplomatic representativeness” of Tunisia in Syria. Tunisia expelled Syria’s ambassador in 2012 in protest at Bashar al-Assad’s regime’s bloody crackdown on its opponents at the start of the civil war. The breakdown of Tunisian-Syrian relations, which took place during the time when Moncef Marzouki was president, was strongly criticized at the time by the opposition. In 2015, Tunisia took a step towards restoring bilateral diplomatic relations by appointing a consular representative to Bashar al-Assad’s regime to assist Tunisians in Syria. Several other Arab countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, have sent similar signals in the past months, indicating that they too are prepared to resume ambassadorial-level diplomatic ties with the Syrian government. Last month, a number of Arab parliament speakers and senior legislators visited Damascus as part of a concerted bid to restore Syria’s membership in the Arab League, more than a decade after it was suspended from the 22-member bloc.
By Cora Sulleyman
