Tunisia to Resume Diplomatic Relations with Syria

By Staff, Agencies

Tunis, which cut diplomatic ties with Damascus following the start of the foreign-backed insurgency in Syria in 2011, announced on Thursday that it wanted to resume its diplomatic ties with the Middle Eastern Arab country.

Tunisian President Kais Saied said his country had decided to boost its diplomatic ties with Syria.

Saied said in a statement following a meeting with his country's foreign affairs minister that the issue of the Syrian conflict was an internal affair that concerned only the Syrian people.

Tunis and Damascus severed diplomatic relations almost a decade ago.

Tunisia began limited diplomatic links with Syria in 2017, in part to help track more than 3,000 Tunisian militants reportedly fighting in Syria.

However, since Saied took the helm in 2021 and consolidated his power, Tunis has been sending Damascus signals that it is ready to resume full diplomatic ties with it.

Several other Arab countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, in the past months, have sent similar signals, indicating that they too are prepared to resume ambassador-level diplomatic ties with the Syrian government.

The foreign-backed insurgency, which started in Syria in 2011, became a platform for the Wahhabi Daesh [Arabic acronym for “ISIS” / “ISIL”] forces, and other western-backed terrorist groups, to wreak havoc in the Arab country, and beyond its borders, particularly in Iraq.

Eventually, defense forces mobilized from Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan were able to overpower the Daesh forces and push the terrorist takfiri forces out of the region.