How did Tunisia respond to Erdogan’s statements about Kais Saied’s decision to dissolve parliament?

The Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed yesterday its extreme astonishment at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s statements regarding the dissolution of the Tunisian parliament.

It said in a statement: “This statement is an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of the two countries and is totally contrary to the brotherly ties between the two countries and peoples and to the principle of mutual respect in relations between countries”, the official news agency reported.

The Ministry added that it recalls that Tunisia, as much as it is committed to the principles of its foreign policy and keen to build close relations with brotherly and friendly countries based on cooperation, solidarity, consultation and mutual trust, it also clings to the independence of its national decision and firmly rejects any attempt to interfere in its sovereignty and the choices of its people, or to question its irreversible democratic course.

The Ministry stressed that Tunisia is “a free and independent state, and the people are the sovereign, and they are the only ones entitled to choose the path to achieve real freedom, which preserves their security, preserves their dignity, supports their rights, enhances all their gains, and is cut off with the deposits of the past and the path of formal democracy, which have nothing to do with the will of Tunisians”.

The Turkish President said the day before yesterday: The dissolution of parliament in Tunisia is a blow to the will of the Tunisian people.

Tunisian Foreign Minister Othman Jerandi announced on Twitter this morning that he had also spoken to his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, by phone and summoned Ankara’s ambassador to express his country’s rejection of Erdogan’s comments.

He explained that he informed both the minister and the ambassador of Tunisia’s refusal to interfere in its affairs, stressing that relations between the two countries should be based on respect for the independence of the national decision and the choices of the Tunisian people alone, and that his country does not allow to question its democratic course.