By Vestnik Kavkaza
On December 17th 2010 a street trader set himself on fire in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid. That’s how he protested against poverty, police outrages and bureaucracy. The event was the start of massive anti-government riots in Tunisia, which were called the Jasmine Revolution and led to the overthrow of the political regime. The new Tunisian authorities are trying to avoid the mistakes of the former regime and are fighting the radicalization of the population.
According to Ali Hutali, Tunisian extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador to Russia, many of the terrorist groups which were operating in Tunisia have been destroyed. The ambassador thinks that the right approach to solving the terrorism problem is neutralization of the causes attracting young people to terrorism: “When a young man cannot find a job, lives in a situation of absolute poverty and loses hope in the country, of help from the country, he may address some groups or fall under ideological influence. The deeper reasons for terrorism should be eliminated, i.e. poverty, unemployment and neglect of youth.”
Today Tunisia puts every effort into preventing infiltration of terrorists from Libya into our country. Tunisia cooperates with Algeria in its struggle against terrorism, and now it intends to use the experience of European states and Russia.
As for other directions of Russian-Tunisian cooperation, the ambassador pointed out tourism. “The flow of Russian tourists to Tunisia keeps growing. Over 300,000 Russian tourists visited Tunisia last year. However, we had to close about 10% of all hotels. But I think that the tourism flow will rise now, because Tunisia has a new political climate and public climate that encourage development of tourism. And I think that we will witness a new qualitative leap in the tourism sector.”
Cooperation is growing in the economic sphere: “New joint enterprises are being established. The visit made by the ministers for agriculture and trade to Russia has resulted in the reaching of an agreement on shipments of Tunisian agricultural products to Russia. And now, when exports of some food products from Europe have ceased in Russia, Tunisia has expressed a readiness to supply Russia with many agricultural products, including olive oil, some types of vegetables and fruits, dairy products. Exports of products have started, and their flow will grow even more this year.”
