His trip was hardly obvious given Tunisian diplomatic tradition: Kaïs Saïed participated, on Wednesday May 22, in the funeral in Tehran of Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi, who died three days earlier in a helicopter crash. The Tunisian head of state was received on this occasion by the Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the same one who congratulated him on his election in October 2019, calling him “ virtuous academic personality.”
The presence of Mr. Saïed in Tehran, alongside two other heads of state (Tajikistan, Qatar), prime ministers (Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, Syria, Azerbaijan, Venezuela, Belarus, etc.), ministers of foreign affairs ( Oman, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia) and other lower-ranking envoys, marks a notable shift in Tunis’ diplomacy. The last visit of a Tunisian head of state to Iran dates back to… 1965. Habib Bourguiba then met the Shah of Iran during an eight-week diplomatic tour of around ten countries.
At a time when Kaïs Saïed maintains tense relations with the West and is sketching a discreet rapprochement with Russia, this visit to Tehran will not fail to fuel questions about the strategic positioning of Tunisia. A first personal contact with an Iranian leader was made at the beginning of March in Algiers during the summit of gas exporting countries. A sign that Algeria is very interested in the fate of Tunisia, its small eastern neighbor over which it exercises increasing supervision, Kaïs Saïed was the “guest of honor”. The opportunity was thus offered to him to meet leaders of gas powers, in particular the Iranian president himself, Ebrahim Raïssi, less than three months before his disappearance. In Algiers, Kaïs Saïed praised “the will of peoples freed from colonialism” working “to impose their total sovereignty over their natural resources”.
Options are becoming scarce
Regular contemplator of “foreign diktats” (implied from the West), Kaïs Saïed, trained in the school of Arab nationalism, pursues with the displacement of Tehran a diplomatic trajectory where the “anti-imperialist” ideology coexists with the pressing quest for financing essential to a Tunisian economy on the verge of bankruptcy. “Mr. Saïed continues to send the message to Europeans and Americans that Tunisia gives itself the right to forge or strengthen ties with other powers, including anti-Western ones,” observes Hamza Meddeb, researcher at Carnegie Middle East Center.
Since refusing to sign an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a loan of 1.9 billion dollars (1.8 billion euros), due to the conditionalities attached to it, the head of The Tunisian state sees its options becoming rarer. Saudi Arabia, requested for financial support, sets the prerequisite for the conclusion of the agreement with the IMF. Qatar demands a compromise with the party from the Islamist matrix Ennahda, of which Mr. Saïed has imprisoned a number of leaders, including its historic leader, Rached Ghannouchi. As for aid from the United Arab Emirates, it would come up against opposition from Algeria. The proximity between Abu Dhabi and Morocco, against a backdrop of normalization of the two countries with Israel in 2020, has in fact triggered an open crisis between Algerians and Emiratis.
In this context, a rapprochement with Iran would take place all the more easily as certain circles surrounding Kaïs Saïed have long-standing links with the Islamic Republic. The head of state’s own brother, Naoufel Saïed, who serves as a behind-the-scenes advisor, historically comes from the so-called “Islamic left” current, a movement which was recognized at the end of the 1970s in the writings of Ali Shariati (1933-1977), considered one of the precursors of the Iranian revolution of 1979. Naoufel Saïed is accustomed to pro-Tehran declarations. At the height of the war in Syria, he notably distinguished himself in a meeting by defending “the idea that the ‘terrorism’ of the rebellion was a plot by the United States and Saudi Arabia against Syria, the Russia and the Iranian Renaissance,” recalls a direct witness to these exchanges. Also the Iranian tropism of Kaïs Saïed, if it were to be confirmed, would not appear out of nowhere.