Tunisian leader calls meeting with Syria’s Assad ‘historic,’ buries memories of Arab Spring

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Smiles, a handshake and what Tunisian President Kais Saied called a “historic meeting” with the long-ostracized Syrian leader Bashar Assad. Talks between the two presidents, held before Friday’s start of the Arab League summit, buried memories, and perhaps the legacy, of the Arab Spring. That series of uprisings started in Tunisia in 2011 and gave the North African country its first taste of democracy as protests rolled across the Arab world, including Syria. Tunisia, reborn after its revolution, was among Assad’s fiercest critics. But Saied since his 2019 election has largely trampled the gains of Tunisia’s revolution, notably for suspending the country’s parliament in 2021 in a crackdown on corruption and dissent.