Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed has taken a firm stance on migration and the Gaza crisis during a high-level meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, held at the Carthage Palace on July 31, 2025.
While the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening bilateral ties in areas such as energy, agriculture, health, and transportation, it was the issue of migration that dominated the talks. President Saïed made it clear that Tunisia would not become, in his words, “a place of transit or reception” for irregular migrants.
He strongly condemned the criminal networks facilitating illegal migration and exploiting vulnerable individuals. “No state can tolerate on its soil people outside its laws,” Saïed declared, while underlining Tunisia’s “humane” handling of recent dismantlings of migrant camps.
He advocated for the creation of air bridges to facilitate voluntary returns, criticizing what he described as an international order steeped in hypocrisy for failing to support countries in the Global South, which he said are left to manage a global crisis alone.
Shifting his focus to the Middle East, the Tunisian president launched a scathing critique of Israel’s actions in Gaza, describing them as “crimes of genocide” committed by “Zionist occupation forces.”
Saïed accused Israel of orchestrating a war of annihilation against the Palestinian people, including the use of starvation and denial of water as tools of war.
He also voiced frustration with what he called the “collapse of international legitimacy,” praising instead a new “human legitimacy” rising through global civil society movements in solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
Reaffirming Tunisia’s support, Saïed insisted on the “inalienable right” of Palestinians to establish an independent state across the full extent of Palestinian territory, with Al-Quds as its capital. “We must not give in to the erosion or abandonment of this right, regardless of the current balance of power,” he concluded.
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