Tunisian-Algerian Efforts To Make Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Attend Upcoming Arab Summit

The Speaker of the Council of the Nation or Upper House of Parliament, Abdelkader Bensaleh, received Monday in Algiers the special envoy of Tunisian President Béji Caid Essebsi, Mr. Habib El Seid, who handed him a message to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

In a statement to the press after a meeting with Mr Bensaleh, the envoy of the Tunisian President confirmed that President Caid Essebsi’s message to President Bouteflika “falls within the framework of consultations between the two countries in preparation for the Arab summit slated to be held in Tunis on 31 March”.”

“The bilateral consultation between the two countries is fundamental and important,” he said, adding that his country “takes into account the views and suggestions of brotherly country Algeria regarding the preparation and organization of the upcoming Arab summit”.

The preparations for the Tunis summit come amid reports of ongoing Tunisian-Algerian efforts to make Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attend the forthcoming Arab get-together, while the Arab League announced in a statement on Sunday that its position on the suspension of Syria’s membership has not changed because there is no “Arab consensus on the matter.”

“There is still no Arab consensus on the question of reconsideration of the decision to suspend Syria’s membership of the Arab League,” Assistant League Secretary-General Hossam Zaki told a news conference.

Damascus has been suffering from acute diplomatic isolation at the Arab and international levels since the outbreak of the internal conflict in March 2011, especially in the wake of the closure of the majority of Arab and Western Embassies in Syria.