Tunisia's President Kais Saied gives a speech at the government's swearing-in ceremony at the Carthage Palace outside the capital Tunis, Tunisia Feb. 27, 2020. (Credit: Fethi Belaid/Pool via Reuters)
TUNIS — Tunisia's President Kais Saied on Monday ordered his foreign affair minister to initiate procedures that would appoint a new ambassador in the Syrian capital of Damascus, the Tunisian presidency said, the latest Arab move to end Syria's regional isolation.
Saudi Arabia is planning to invite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to an Arab League summit that Riyadh is hosting in May, three sources familiar with the plans said last week.
Tunisia cut off diplomatic relations with Syria nearly a decade ago to protest Assad's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in 2011 that developed into civil war in which hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed and millions sent fleeing.
Since Saied took control of almost all powers in July 2021 in what his political opponents have described as a coup, Tunisia has sent signals it was open to changing its diplomatic stance with Syria.
Tunisia reinstituted a limited diplomatic mission to Syria in 2017, in part to help track more than 3,000 Tunisian militants fighting in Syria.