As part of the working visit of the Tunisian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nabil Ammar, to Moscow, where he held, at the end of the first day, a press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov
Tunisian Foreign Minister Nabil Ammar and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov discussed on Tuesday areas of bilateral cooperation between the two countries, such as technology and civil nuclear energy.
The bilateral discussions took place during the first day of the working visit carried out by the Tunisian Foreign Minister and concluded with a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart, followed by the Anadolu correspondent.
At the press conference, Ammar said the talks with Lavrov focused on “topics of interest for cooperation and political consultations between the two countries.”
Ammar highlighted the similarity of views on current international and regional issues of common interest, including the Palestinian question, the Libyan file, and the question of Syria’s return to the League of Arab States.
The head of Tunisian diplomacy stressed that “Tunisia is in communication and cooperation with all its partners, and that it is not part of its diplomatic tradition to reject one partner in favor of another.”
“We have channels of communication and dialogue with our partners, and we have never said that we are cutting communication bridges with the International Monetary Fund,” he added.
He explained that the security of the country, the stability, and the protection of vulnerable social groups constitute red lines of Tunisia’s internal policy and that these are subjects that can be discussed with partners, in particular the International Monetary Fund, which, according to him, “must serve the interests of countries and not the other way around”.
Since October 2022, negotiations have been at a standstill between Tunisia and the IMF to obtain a loan amounting to $1.9 billion over 4 years.
This failure is due to the demands of commitment to an economic reform program, which includes a reduction in energy and food subsidies, a reduction in the cost of public wages, and a restructuring of public enterprises, which is not entirely in line with the approach of the Tunisian authorities
The Russian Foreign Minister, for his part, declared during the same press conference that “Russia and Tunisia share a common desire to strengthen bilateral cooperation in various fields, such as technology and civil nuclear energy. , as well as exploring new partnership opportunities.”
And added that “Tunisia is one of Russia’s important partners on the African continent, and the volume of trade between the two countries exceeded 1.2 billion dollars during the first half of 2023.”
Lavrov also said that Russia “increased the volume of its purchases of Tunisian products, particularly agricultural and textiles, and supported Tunisian tourism, since the number of Russian tourists in Tunisia had reached around 600,000 tourists before the pandemic. coronavirus.”
The head of Russian diplomacy added that “Tunisia has increased its purchases of Russian grain, and that the first batch of grain has been sent to the country”, without specifying the date of its arrival.
During the day Monday, the Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced, in a press release, that Minister Nabil Ammar would pay a working visit on Tuesday and Wednesday to Moscow, and that this visit is part of the common will of the two countries to develop cooperation and bilateral relations.
