Libya slams Tunis, Israel ties

Libya slams Tunis, Israel ties

TUNIS (Reuter): Libya said yesterday it was surprised by Tunisia's decision to establish ties with Israel, describing the move by its North African neighbor as contradictory to the will of the Arab people.

"This decision is contrary to (Libya's) position of principle...which rejects normalization policies with the Israeli enemy in all its forms," the official Libyan news agency JANA said in a commentary.

Flanked by Israeli Foreign Minister Ehud Barak and Tunisian Foreign Minister Habib Ben Yahia, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher announced in Washington on Monday that Tunisia and Israel would establish diplomatic interests sections in each other's countries by April 15.

Christopher said the move was "an important step to widen the circle of peace" in the Middle East.

"This decision is a surprise to us," JANA, received in Tunis, said. "This decision reflects disdain for Arab and Islamic values."

Tunis-based diplomats said the Libyan comment was likely to increase strain in the already fragile ties between the two countries.

They recalled that Tripoli in November brought home its envoy in Mauritania in a protest against Nouakchott's decision to establish similar ties with Israel.

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, saying he was expressing the position of the Arab people by opposing the Middle East peace process, had been pressing neighboring Tunisia since 1994 not to establish ties with Israel, they said.

Last year, Tunisia turned down a request to that effect from Qaddafi. It told his envoy it was a sovereign state and rejected any interference in its foreign policy.

Christopher said on Monday he and Ben Yahia had discussed threats against Tunisia. "I told him the United States would take such threats very seriously," he said, without revealing who had made the threats.

Ben Yahia said in Washington that the decision was an upgrading of the level of relations with Israel as a result of progress made in the Middle East peace process.

Tunisia and Israel in 1994 agreed to establish "liaison channels", a lower form of diplomatic contact than a "liaison bureau" or an "interests section".

But the decision was not implemented, Tunisia insisting it would only do so when progress was made in talks between Israel and the Palestinians over implementing their 1993 peace deal.

Diplomats said that Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, at an unexpected meeting earlier this month with Qaddafi in southern Tunisia, tried to mollify Libya's opposition to his country's ties with Israel, without apparent success.