Tunisian President Kaïs Saied arrived in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Wednesday, March 17, to welcome the emergence of the new Libyan national unity government and revive the important exchanges for the two countries. This after ten years of civil war in Libya.
The Tunisian president wants to be quick: he is making his first official visit to Libya, two days after the inauguration of the new Libyan director.
Kaïs Saïed was met at Tripoli airport by Mohamad Younes alManfi, the new president of the Libyan Presidency, with whom he is scheduled to meet. The Tunisian president will also be received by the new interim Libyan prime minister, Abdel Hamid Ddeibah. Kaïs Saïed is the first head of state or government to come to greet the emergence of a government with national unity in Libya, although he has not made many trips abroad in a year and a half at the head of the Tunisian state.
It must be said that for Tunisia, reconciliation in Libya is crucial. It has 500 kilometers of common border with its neighbor, and it has suffered a lot during the Libyan civil war, whether it is the influx of refugees, with the Islamist attacks prepared on Libyan soil. The Tunisian economy, which was heavily dependent on Libya, also collapsed. The Libyan government with national unity is therefore a guarantee of stability for Tunisia, but Kaïs Saïed had never sided with either side of Libya, be it Tripoli or Benghazi.
The two countries have many issues to discuss: the reopening of the Tunisian embassy in Tripoli, the fate of Tunisian jihadists still on Libyan soil, but also the vital resumption of exchanges between the two countries. These were again interrupted much of last year due to Covid-19. In the time of Muammar Gaddafi, Tunisia exported a lot of agricultural food and construction products to Libya, and hundreds of thousands of Tunisians worked on Libyan soil. Today, Tunisian companies rely heavily on Libyan reconstruction sites.
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