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By Sami Zaptia.
London, 12 November 2020:
The land and air borders between Libya and Tunisia will be reopened on Saturday 14 October, the Tripoli-based Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Libyan Airports Authority reported yesterday.
Flights between Libya and Tunisia and cross-border passengers will be able to resume – as long as travel is conducted within the Health Protocol agreed between the two countries on 21 October.
The agreement came after a Libyan Foreign Ministry delegation met their Tunisian counterparts in Tunis.
The Libyan Foreign Ministry had also reported that many issues related to the development of bilateral relations were discussed, such as the speed of holding the meeting of the Libyan-Tunisian Joint Committee and the need to expedite the resolution of all issues between the two countries.
It will be recalled that an active section of Tunisians residing near the Tunisian-Libyan border have been demonstrating and blockading the road to the border crossing to prevent Tunisian goods from entering Libya. They were protesting because they could not travel to Libya to engage in passenger-carried trade. This region has depended on cross-border legal and illegal trade for decades.
Libya is still under an EU sky embargo, it will be recalled, and the only flights that have been active are those to Istanbul since July this year
In October, Libya announced the resumption of flights to Egypt and Sudan in November.
On 28 October the Libyan Airports Authority reported that it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Malta on cooperation in the field of aviation and maritime transport.
The MoU included an agreement to resume flights between the two countries through the Mediterranean Aviation Company (Medavia), provided that the necessary anti-Coronavirus pandemic measures are observed. Medavia is owned by the Libyan Foreign Investment Company.
The registration of one of Libyan Airlines’ aircraft in Malta, to circumvent the current EU Libya flight ban, as well as and the contribution of the Maltese institutions in raising the efficiency of Libyan cadres in the field of aviation and airports, was also agreed in the MoU.
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