The Tunisian President intends to restore diplomatic relations with Damascus

“Cut off by former president Moncef Marzouki in a move that drew strong criticism from Tunisia’s opposition, Tunisian President Kais Saied on Friday announced his intention to restore diplomatic relations with Syria, severed in 2012.”

“The issue of the regime in Syria concerns Syrians alone, and Tunisia deals with the Syrian state, and has nothing to do with the choices of the Syrian people,” he said.

In February, Saied announced his intention to “strengthen diplomatic representation” in Syria, during a meeting with Foreign Minister Nabil Ammar, Said said said: “There is no justification for not having a Tunisian ambassador in Damascus and an ambassador of the Syrian Arab Republic in Tunisia,” according to a video published on the official website of the Tunisian presidency.

In February, Saied announced his intention to “strengthen diplomatic representation” in Syria, after Tunisia expelled the Syrian ambassador in 2012 in protest at the Syrian regime’s repression of its opponents at the start of the civil war.

Tunisia also refocused a limited diplomatic mission in Syria in 2017 to help track more than 3,000 Tunisian fighters who had traveled to Syria to join extremist groups.

Last month, Tunisia bolstered its diplomatic mission in Damascus with a diplomatic mission from Beirut, but with the president’s announcement that a decision must be made, it is widely expected that the Foreign Ministry will soon appoint an ambassador to Damascus.

Efforts to bring Syria back into the Arab League accelerated last month after a catastrophic earthquake struck northern Syria and southern Turkey on February 6. The UAE is at the forefront of efforts to normalize relations with the Assad regime, after 12 years of civil war.

Following the earthquake, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan met with Syrian regime leader Bashar Al Assad in Damascus, the second such trip since the beginning of the year.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi also called Assad after the earthquake that claimed more than 43,000 lives in Turkey and Syria together, caused extensive building damage and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

A Saudi plane landed at Aleppo International Airport carrying relief aid for victims of the devastating earthquake, the first since Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Damascus more than 10 years ago.