TUNIS: Tunisia’s ruling Islamists and their secular opponents will start three weeks of negotiations tomorrow to allow the government to step down and make way for a caretaker cabinet until elections, a labour union mediating the talks said.
The moderate Islamist Ennahda party agreed at the weekend to a deal under which its government would resign after the talks as a way to end months of political deadlock in the country where the Arab Spring uprisings began.
Tunisia’s powerful UGTT union, which brokered talks between the sides, said in a statement yesterday that the negotiations would begin tomorrow, to make way for a non-partisan administration and set a date for parliamentary and presidential elections.
“The national dialogue will start on Saturday with the participation of all the parties represented in the National Constituent Assembly,” Ennahda confirmed.
Opposition parties, like the Islamists, say they have accepted the blueprint drafted by the mediators — the UGTT, employers’ organisation Utica, the Tunisian League for Human Rights and the bar association — to resolve the crisis triggered by the July 25 murder of opposition leader Mohamed Brahmi by suspected Islamist militants.
Opposition parties took to the streets to demand the Islamist-led government step down after the killing.
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