Tunisia sacked its ambassador to the United Nations, Moncef Baati, on Friday for allegedly not consulting with the country’s foreign ministry on issues, including the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.
“Tunisia’s ambassador to the United Nations has been dismissed for purely professional reasons concerning his weak performance and lack of coordination with the ministry on important matters under discussion at the UN,” said the foreign ministry in a statement.
Baati has been on the U.N. Security Council since the beginning of the year. Diplomatic sources told AFP that the ambassador went beyond what Tunisian President Kais Saied wanted in his criticism of the peace proposal.
Baati reportedly has been leading “diplomatic negotiations on a Palestinian draft Security Resolution declaring U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan in breach of international law,” reported Foreign Policy, citing three diplomats.
Members of the Security Council lamented Baati’s dismissal, according to AFP and Foreign Policy.
The latest draft of the resolution is much less aggressive in tone than the initial version, according to AFP, which recently obtained a copy.
The new draft, which was acquired ahead of a U.N. Security Council vote on Tuesday, no longer mentions the United States by name and uses less confrontational language than the original, according to the report.
