The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, had a telephone call yesterday evening with the new head of Tunisian diplomacy, Mohamed Ali Nafti. Bourita «congratulated» his Tunisian counterpart «for the confidence entrusted in him by His Excellency the President of the Republic», according to a statement from the Tunisian Foreign Ministry. Both parties «emphasized the depth and solidity of the fraternal ties between the two brotherly peoples and the common determination to further strengthen the ties of cooperation between the Republic of Tunisia and the Kingdom of Morocco», the statement added. A few weeks before the October 6 presidential elections, Kaïs Saïed carried out a ministerial reshuffle on Monday, August 26. In addition to Nafti's appointment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also appointed a new Secretary of State, Mohamed Ben Ayed, a former ambassador to Morocco from 2018 to 2023. He had been recalled for consultations following the same action taken by Rabat after President Saïed's reception of the Polisario leader during the Africa-Japan summit held in Tunis in August 2022. This call between Nasser Bourita and Mohamed Ali Nafti comes nearly two weeks after talks in France between the head of government, Aziz Akhannouch, and the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nabil Ammar.
