Amal al-Hilali - Tunisia
The visit of Tunisian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Tunisia sparked a wave of controversy in the political and popular circles between Marhab and Condemned, and showed a case of unprecedented polarization regarding Tunisia’s management of the Libyan file.
On Thursday, the Turkish President arrived in Tunisia, accompanied by a security and military delegation on a one-day working visit, while the file of the conflict between the parties in Libya and ways to contain it contained the joint meeting between President Qais Saeed and his Turkish counterpart.
Erdogan announced in a speech today that Turkey and Tunisia decided to establish cooperation in order to provide political support to the legitimate government in Libya, according to what was reported by official Turkish media.
Erdogan's visit to Tunisia is the second of its kind, as he previously met the late Tunisian President Beji Kaid Essebsi on December 27, 2017 on a working visit.
Parties denounce
Several political parties, such as the Workers' Party, the People's Movement and the Tunisian Prospects, have expressed their concerns about Tunisia entering the policy of axes regarding the Libyan file, stressing in official statements that Tunisia's interest lies in remaining neutral.
The leaders of these parties stressed that Tunisia's fate, security and economic, is directly linked to stability in Libya, and to ending the conflict between the parties inside it.
In his speech to Al Jazeera Net, Secretary General of the People’s Movement Zuhair al-Maghzawi called on Tunisian President Qais Saeed to adhere to the principles of Tunisian diplomacy and take a distance from all Libyan parties and not to enter a regional axis, which may negatively affect Tunisia's security and stability.
Al-Maghzawi warned against re-experiencing the late President Beji Qaid Essebsi regarding the Libyan file and turning Tunisia into a platform to introduce weapons to one of the conflicting parties there, or to open the airspace for military operations inside the Libyan country.
For its part, the Free Constitutional Party Bloc, the descendant of the dissolved ruling party, announced its progress this morning to the presidency of Parliament by requesting an extraordinary plenary session, and to invite the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense to listen to them and learn the secrets of the meeting that brought together the Turkish President and his Tunisian counterpart.
The Renaissance welcomes
In return, political and party leaders expressed their welcome to the Turkish president and to Tunisia's standing with the internationally recognized legitimate government in Libya, warning of the threats posed by Haftar and his militias supported by external parties, as soon as he arrived in the Libyan capital and its implications for the Tunisian national security.
The leader of the Renaissance movement and former foreign minister, Rafik Abdel Salam, welcomed al-Jazeera Net in a joint Tunisian-Turkish cooperation to resolve the Libyan crisis, stressing that Tunisia stands with the legitimate government of al-Sarraj, which, according to his description, is facing military assault from unrecognized forces internationally.
Abdel Salam was surprised by the fact that political parties and leaders in Tunisia stood with a rebel military faction and outside the legal frameworks, expressing the blood of the Libyan people with the support and financing of the forces hostile to the Arab revolutions and atoning for democracy.
He added, "The same parties that denounce the meeting that brought together the Turkish and Tunisian presidents under the pretext of rejecting political positioning, find them involved in the marrow in the ideological alignment with the axes that previously supported the military coup in Egypt, and today it supports all the revolutionary tendencies in the region."
The leader of the Renaissance called on all countries that believe that the solution is only political in Libya, to cooperate with Tunisia with the aim of stopping the military aggression against Tripoli, reiterating his country's support for international legitimacy in Libya in the framework of positive neutrality.
The social media pages in Tunisia were also filled with comments from activists, media people and intellectual elites, which showed a sharp division between a supporter and an observer of Erdogan's visit to Tunisia in relation to the Libyan file, while the other major parties did not issue official positions regarding the visit.