Tunisian President decides to strengthen diplomatic ties with Syria

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Tunisian president Kais Saied decided to strengthen diplomatic ties with Syria, the presidency said on Thursday.

This came as Saied received his Foreign Minister Nabil Ammar, at the Carthage Palace, who was newly appointed after the President dismissed former Foreign Minister Othman Al-Jarandi.

سير عمل وزارة الشؤون الخارجية وضرورة الإسراع بإعداد مشروع حركة رؤساء البعثات الدبلوماسية والدائمة والقنصلية والترفيع في مستوى التمثيل الدبلوماسي التونسي في دمشق أبرز محاور استقبال رئيس الجمهورية #قيس_سعيّد لوزير الشؤون الخارجية السيّد نبيل عمّار. #TnPR pic.twitter.com/5f7FnDe7OR

— Tunisian Presidency - الرئاسة التونسية (@TnPresidency) February 9, 2023

During his meeting with the foreign minister, the Tunisian President reiterated the Tunisian people's support for the Syrian people, pointing out that the issue of the "Syrian regime" is an internal matter of concern.

In this context, Saied spoke about what he described as "many historical steps that Syria has gone through since the beginning of the twentieth century, and arrangements that have taken place since that time to divide it."

The Tunisian President touched on the constitutional experience in Syria, the failure in drafting a Syrian constitution, and the bloody days that followed as a result of the Syrians' rejection of any foreign intervention.

The Tunisian President's meeting with his country's Foreign Minister dealt with a number of issues related to the work process in the Ministry, the need to expedite the preparation of a project for heads of diplomatic missions, provided that the most important criteria are competence and accountability.

After severing ties in 2012, Tunisia returned limited diplomatic mission to Syria in 2017, seeking to track down more than 3,000 extremist Tunisian fighters who were fighting alongside terrorist organizations in Syria.

Read: Tunisia: Two former MPs arrested over 'recruiting terrorists to Syria'

Back in December, Former Tunisian PM and VP of the Ennahda party, Ali Larayedh, is now under arrest for smuggling citizens into Syria to join militant groups.

Ennahda's leader, Rached Ghannouchi, was also called in for questioning. Al Mayadeen's correspondent also reported that Tunisian security arrested the former leader of Ennahda, Habib El-Louz, on charges of sending Tunisians to fight in Syria.

A calculated 6,000 Tunisians have joined groups in Syria and Iraq, after which a parliamentary panel was created in 2017 to investigate the organizations accountable for recruiting the members. Leftist groups pointed fingers at the Ennahda party and Larayedh for committing the crime. 

However, Ennahda rejected all claims and labeled the ruling as an effort to conceal “the catastrophic loss of the election” and as a political attack on Kais Saied’s opponent.