Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XXIV, North Africa

360. Memorandum for the Record¹

Washington, March 30, 1988

SUBJECT

• General Powell’s Meeting with Tunisian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Mestiri, March 29, 1988, 4:10–4:30 p.m., The White House

After welcoming Foreign Minister Mestiri to Washington, General Powell noted that he and other senior Administration officials followed events in Tunisia closely. Powell recalled the meeting that he had had with Ambassador Ben Yahia on November 7, 1987,² shortly after President Ben Ali’s accession, as one of the most memorable moments in his tenure at the White House. Ben Yahia had handled his difficult task very skillfully, and Presidents Bourguiba and Ben Ali both deserved great credit for the dignity with which the change of power was conducted. Powell congratulated Mestiri on the success that the new regime has enjoyed since November. He emphasized continued U.S. support for Tunisia, and for the efforts of President Ben Ali at political liberalization and economic reform.

Mestiri thanked Powell for his remarks, and said the GOT was determined to continue along the progressive path that Ben Ali had charted. The Foreign Minister added that he had had a very good meeting with Secretary Shultz, reviewing the full range of bilateral and regional issues.³ He had handed the Secretary a letter from President Ben Ali to President Reagan,⁴ responding to the message which Dick Walters had delivered in early March.⁵ Mestiri said he had also met with Secretary Carlucci, an old friend with whom he had shared service in the Congo.⁶ He and Carlucci had discussed Tunisia’s FMS debt problem at some length; Carlucci had promised to get in touch with Secretary of the Treasury Baker to see what more might be done to help Tunisia and other FMS debtors.

Powell responded that the Administration as a whole had been concerned about the FMS debt problem for some time. Making good on his promise to Mestiri, Carlucci had raised the issue with Secretary Baker on the margins of a meeting at the White House earlier on March 29. Powell said he would urge Baker and other senior officials to do everything we could to ease the military debt burden on friendly countries like Tunisia, but acknowledged that Baker had a number of serious obstacles to contend with. Chief among them was the worrisome precedential effect of FMS debt relief for the Treasury’s huge domestic loan portfolio.

Powell then inquired about the GOT’s efforts to establish a National Security Council, similar to the U.S. model. Mestiri said Tunisia’s NSC experiment seemed to be working well, although it was still in the development stage. In addition to the President and the Prime Minister, the Tunisian NSC included the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Interior. The group was served by a very small secretariat, whose purpose was to coordinate decisionmaking.

Powell observed that he had two main responsibilities as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The first was to make the interagency process work. This meant ensuring that the President received an honest, objective presentation of options and issues for decision. The second was to advise the President, based on the balanced decision package that had been assembled. He often had to walk a delicate line between his coordinating and advisory functions.

Turning to regional issues, Powell asked Mestiri about the state of Tunisian-Libyan relations. Mestiri said the GOT sought more normal relations with Qadhafi, but was keeping its guard up and resisting pressures (especially from Algeria) to force the pace of normalization. Qadhafi had been on good behavior during his recent official visit to Tunisia; he had seemed quiet and reflective, at times almost depressed. But then he had returned to Tunisia with President Bendjedid for a brief ceremony commemorating Algerian and Tunisian independence, and had disrupted the event with a vitriolic speech denouncing the U.S. and extolling the virtues of Arab unity. Tunisia had subsequently informed Algeria that it had no intention of admitting Libya to the Tripartite Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation anytime soon. Qadhafi simply couldn’t be trusted. Bendjedid had told Ben Ali he understood Tunisia’s position, but Algeria through FLN Chief Messadia was still pressing for greater GOT flexibility toward Libya and seemed to be moving toward an interim Algerian-Libyan unity agreement of some sort.

Mestiri continued that the Algerians seemed to have a variety of motives for closer relations with Libya. They could be seeking Libyan support for the Polisario, and in Algeria’s overall rivalry with Morocco; perhaps they hoped to attract Libyan financial support; some elements within the Algerian leadership were great proponents of “unionism” and were receptive to Qadhafi’s appeals for Libyan-Algerian unity. Mestiri said all of this made Tunisia nervous, and a little suspicious of Algerian intentions. Algerian FLN party chief Messaadia had recently come to Tunis and criticized the GOT’s moves toward a multi-party democracy; the GOT had been “amazed” by Messaadia’s comments. Nevertheless, Mestiri concluded, Tunisia was pleased with the generally good relations that it had with Algeria and its more normal relationship with Libya. Powell urged continued Tunisian caution in dealing with Qadhafi.

The meeting concluded at 4:30 p.m. Foreign Minister Mestiri was accompanied by Ambassador Ben Yahia, MFA advisor Bouzayen, and DCM Gharbi. Ambassador Robert Pelletreau, Bob Oakley, and Bill Burns also sat in.

1. Source: Reagan Library, William J. Burns Files, Tunisia: 02/01/88–07/31/88. Secret. Sent for information. Drafted by Burns.
2. No record of the meeting has been found.
3. A record of the Shultz-Mestiri meeting is in telegram 99606 to Tunis, March 31. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D880274–0185)
4. Not found.
5. See Document 357.
6. No record of the meeting has been found.