Ghannouchi: “Tunisia and Algeria are jointly working to thrash out compromise between all Libyan forces”

The leader of Tunisia’s Ennahda Movement, Rachid Ghannouchi, has denied the touting of talk about the fact that his foreign activities, fall within the “parallel diplomacy,” alongside the official Tunisian diplomacy.

Mr Ghannouchi said in a statement to the “Arabyia.net” website that his numerous foreign contacts “fell within what is known as the People’s diplomacy, which does not offset however the official state diplomacy” .

He added: “People’s diplomacy in political science, carried out by the parties and civil society organizations, does not compete or clutter official state diplomacy, but it is meant as a back-up endeavor in favour of the latter”.

Answering a question related to the existence of a so-called “interference” into  the Tunisian Presidency’s initiative on the Libyan issue, whereby Tunisia seeks to call for a tripartite summit of Libya’s neighboring countries (Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria) in the next few days, Mr Ghannouchi said that the Tunisian Presidency is fully  aware of all his movements – as he met with President Caid Essebsi on Sunday before traveling to Algeria for an encounter with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, stressing in this respect that his movements are chiefly designed to prop up the Tunisian president’s initiative on this file, as he put it.

Mr Ghannouchi also emphasized in this regard “that the official policy of both Tunisia and Algeria is to press for a negotiated settlement in order to restore calm and stability and foster national consensus, by ironing out all divergences among all the rival forces in Libya”.