TUNIS — Tunisia has summoned
Turkey’s
ambassador in protest against “interference”, the foreign ministry said
Wednesday, after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized his counterpart in
Tunis for dissolving the country’s parliament.
اضافة اعلان
President Kais Saied sacked the assembly last week,
eight months after suspending it and seizing wide-ranging powers in a decisive
blow against the democratic system born out of the country’s 2011 uprising,
which sparked the Arab Spring.
Tunisia’s fragmented parliament has long been
dominated by
Ennahdha, an Islamist-inspired party close to Erdogan’s ruling AKP
and a bitter foe of Saied.
The Turkish leader had on Monday criticized Saied’s
latest move as a “blow to the will of the Tunisian people” and a “smear on
democracy”.
Saied, a populist who has railed against outside influence
since his July 25 power grab, told Foreign Minister
Othman Jarandi that he
rejected “all interference in any form” in Tunisian affairs, a Tuesday evening
statement from Saied’s office said, without directly mentioning Erdogan.
The foreign ministry issued a statement on Tuesday
voicing “surprise” at Erdogan’s comments, which it called “unacceptable
interference” in Tunisian domestic affairs.
On Wednesday morning, it said Jarandi had spoken by
telephone with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, as well as summoning
Ankara’s ambassador in protest.
Ennahdha’s close ties to Turkey under the AKP have
long been controversial in the North African country, where many are proud of a
long tradition of secularism.
Saied has been repeatedly criticized by Western
governments and human rights groups for his moves against Tunisia’s
post-revolutionary system, which have sparked fears of a return to autocracy 11
years after the overthrow of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
The US and
France both voiced “concern” after he dissolved
parliament, but Tunisian authorities have not publicly responded to either.
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