The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Immigration and Tunisians Abroad, Nabil Ammar, and the Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jassim Muhammad Al-Budaiwi, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) yesterday, Monday, at the Ministry's headquarters, concerning a consultation mechanism between the Ministry and the Council's General Secretariat.

The memorandum, which was signed at the end of a working session between delegations from the two parties, aims to intensify consultations between the two parties and to develop relations of cooperation and consultation, in particular by establishing a work program for the coming years in various fields, according to a statement by the Tunisian ministry.

The memorandum also aims, according to a document received by TAP, to strengthen bilateral relations between Tunisia and the Gulf countries through the portal of the General Secretariat of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which would be a framework and a platform for defending Tunisia's interests in this vital region of the world, particularly in the fields of the economy, investment and finance.

This memorandum will also help to strengthen the presence of Tunisian expertise in the region and to benefit from all the forms of support provided by the GCC countries to a number of friend countries such as Jordan, Morocco, Iraq and Egypt.

On the fringes of this visit, a meeting was organized to bring together the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Immigration and Tunisians Abroad and the Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council with the ambassadors of the member states of the GCC accredited to Tunisia, in order to work together more closely to consolidate existing cooperative relations between Tunisia and the Gulf states.

At the start of the working session, Nabil Ammar recalled the historic ties that bind Tunisia to the Arab States of the Gulf, stressing Tunisia's commitment to further strengthening these relations and raising them to levels appropriate to the challenges of the current stage and the achievement of mutual interest.

For his part, the Secretary General of the GCC praised Tunisia's longstanding and distinguished relations with the GCC as well as with all the Arab countries of the Gulf, highlighting the status it enjoys among the leaders of these countries and their brotherly peoples, according to the same source.

Former Secretary General of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, Nayef Falah Mubarak Al-Hajraf, proposed on June 7, 2021, the signing a memorandum of understanding between the General Secretariat of the Council and Tunisia (represented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

It is noteworthy that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a regional Arab organization based in Riyadh, founded in 1981 and comprising six-member states: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait and the Sultanate of Oman. The Council's main objectives are to promote coordination, integration and interdependence between member states.