Turkey shows solidarity with Tunisian people
ANKARA
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu on July 27 had a phone conversation with his Tunisian counterpart, Othman Jerandi, and expressed Turkey’s support to the Tunisian people amid the political turmoil in the North African country.
During the meeting, Çavuşoğlu stressed the importance Turkey attaches to Tunisia’s stability and peace, the Foreign Ministry said.
Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop on July 27 called for “constitutional order and rules of law” in Tunisia.
“Our desire is for the Tunisian people to be governed by their own will, as they deserve, with a government in which the constitutional order and rules of law work,” Şentop told Turkish news channel Haber Global during a live interview as he is in Azerbaijan for talks.
Some basic institutions could not be established in the country, including the Constitutional Court, because laws on the implementation of the constitution could not be enacted, he said.
Şentop emphasized that another issue was the dismissal of the prime minister “because there is no authority given to the president to dismiss the prime minister.”
The prime minister can only be dismissed through a vote of no confidence in parliament, he said.
“The president may declare a state of emergency and take all kinds of measures, but these measures do not include suspending parliamentary work and dismissing the prime minister or government,” he added. On Sunday, Tunisian President Kais Saied dismissed the government of Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, froze the parliament and assumed the executive authority with the assistance of a new prime minister.
The move was rejected by most of Tunisia’s parliamentary blocs, including Ennahda, Heart of Tunisia, the Dignity Coalition and the People’s Movement.
Following Saied’s decisions, Tunisian Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi described the president’s move as nothing but a “full-fledged coup” against the Tunisian constitution, revolution and freedoms in the country.
Tunisia is seen as the only Arab country that succeeded in carrying out a democratic transition among other Arab countries, including Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, and witnessed popular revolutions that toppled the ruling regimes.
