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Political Parties Call for Roadmap in Tunisia but Differ over Goals

Tunisian President Kais Saied meets a group of union leaders and civil society members (Tunisian presidency)
Tunisian President Kais Saied meets a group of union leaders and civil society members (Tunisian presidency)
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Political Parties Call for Roadmap in Tunisia but Differ over Goals

Tunisian President Kais Saied meets a group of union leaders and civil society members (Tunisian presidency)
Tunisian President Kais Saied meets a group of union leaders and civil society members (Tunisian presidency)

Tunisian President Kais Saied and Foreign Minister Othman Jerandi have phoned senior world officials, including US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, to reaffirm their support for the multilateral and democratic track in their country.

In their calls, Saied and Jerandi stressed that recent decisions the administration had taken were “circumstantial” and aimed at “correction and reform,” not overturning the Tunisian constitution or enforcing martial law.

The president had suspended parliament, dismissed the government, and said he plans to put some lawmakers on trial for corruption.

He also said he would choose a new prime minister. He lifted the parliamentary immunity of legislators and later fired the defense and justice ministers.

While many political parties in the North African state have collectively stepped up their demands for a clear roadmap following the president’s move, they differed on the reasoning, objectives, and timeline the plan should take.

As for Saied, he held marathon meetings with representatives of bar associations, judges, journalists, worker unions, farmers to reassure them that his move does not mean he is straying the country away from democracy.

He explained the reasons behind removing the government of Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi with the help of the army and freezing parliament.

After meeting with the president in the presence of national figures, Ibrahim Bouderbala, the head of Tunisia’s Bar Association, praised “Saied’s will to support national political dialogue with all political parties without exclusion, including the leaders of Ennahda Party and other opposition parties.”

Bouderbala stated that the only political figures to be excluded from the dialogue are corruption suspects that include several politicians and current and former lawmakers facing charges of smuggling, tax evasion, taking bribes, and receiving illicit financial support.

Meanwhile, a handful of senior constitutional law experts in Tunisia, including human rights defender Salwa Hamrouni and the academic Saghir Zakraoui, praised the decisions announced by Saied on Sunday evening.

Despite the support the president’s move received from the experts, some political leaders in Tunisia and abroad described his decisions as a “coup against the constitution and the results of parliamentary elections.”

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US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces

SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
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US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces

SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)

US forces have pulled out of two more bases in northeastern Syria, visiting Reuters reporters found, accelerating a troop drawdown that the commander of US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces said was allowing a resurgence of ISIS.

Reuters reporters who visited the two bases in the past week found them mostly deserted, both guarded by small contingents of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - the Kurdish-led military group that Washington has backed in the fight against ISIS for a decade.

Cameras used on bases occupied by the US-led military coalition had been taken down, and razor wire on the outer perimeters had begun to sag.

A Kurdish politician who lives on one base said there were no longer US troops there. SDF guards at the second base said troops had left recently but declined to say when. The Pentagon declined to comment.

It is the first confirmation on the ground by reporters that the US has withdrawn from Al-Wazir and Tel Baydar bases in Hasaka province. It brings to at least four the number of bases in Syria US troops have left since President Donald Trump took office.

Trump’s administration said this month it will scale down its military presence in Syria to one base from eight in parts of northeastern Syria that the SDF controls. The New York Times reported in April that troops might be reduced from 2,000 to 500 in the drawdown.

The SDF did not respond to questions about the current number of troops and open US bases in northeastern Syria.

But SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, who spoke to Reuters at another US base, Al Shadadi, said the presence of a few hundred troops on one base would be "not enough" to contain the threat of ISIS.

"The threat of ISIS has significantly increased recently. But this is the US military’s plan. We’ve known about it for a long time ... and we’re working with them to make sure there are no gaps and we can maintain pressure on ISIS," he said.

Abdi spoke to Reuters on Friday, hours after Israel launched its air war on Iran. He declined to comment on how the new Israel-Iran war would affect Syria, saying simply that he hoped it would not spill over there and that he felt safe on a US base.

Hours after the interview, three Iranian-made missiles targeted the Al Shadadi base and were shot down by US defense systems, two SDF security sources said.

ISIS ACTIVE IN SYRIAN CITIES

ISIS ruled vast swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2017 during Syria’s civil war, imposing a vision of religious rule under which it beheaded locals in city squares, sex-trafficked members of the Yazidi minority and executed foreign journalists and aid workers.

The group, from its strongholds in Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, also launched deadly attacks in European and Middle Eastern countries.

A US-led military Coalition of more than 80 countries waged a yearslong campaign to defeat the group and end its territorial control, supporting Iraqi forces and the SDF.

But ISIS has been reinvigorated since the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of separate opposition factions.

Abdi said ISIS cells had become active in several Syrian cities, including Damascus, and that a group of foreign extremists who once battled the Syrian regime had joined its ranks. He did not elaborate.

He said ISIS had seized weapons and ammunition from Syrian regime depots in the chaos after Assad's fall.

Several Kurdish officials told Reuters that ISIS had already begun moving more openly around US bases which had recently been shuttered, including near the cities of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, once strongholds for the extremist group.

In areas the SDF controls east of the Euphrates River, ISIS has waged a series of attacks and killed at least 10 SDF fighters and security forces, Abdi said. Attacks included a roadside bomb targeting a convoy of oil tankers on a road near the US base where he gave the interview.