Tunisia-Libya border trade to resume 'very soon'

Tunisia is confident that trade at the main border crossing with Libya will resume "very soon", local authorities have said, nearly a week after Libyan officials imposed a blockade.

"This problem will be resolved very soon," Tahar Matmati, the governor of Medenine, on the route between Tunisia and Libya, told AFP.

Discussions are primarily focused on "the nature of products imported into Tunisia", Matmati said, adding that Libya wanted a "single tax imposed on all products, and that requires certain administrative procedures".

Commercial traffic through the Ras Jedir border post was blocked on Friday by the Libyans, slowing the flow of people crossing the frontier as each vehicle was thoroughly searched.

An official from the Zuwarra local council in Libya, Hafedh Muammar, said that the blockade had been put in place in protest against the "smuggling of subsidised goods", such as petrol.

The Zuwarra local council at the beginning of April pledged its allegiance to the unity government led by Fayez al-Sarraj, which is trying to assert its authority in Tripoli.

The paralysis of traffic across the frontier has angered the population in southeastern Tunisia, where the economy is reliant on cross-border trade, including contraband goods.

The two countries share nearly 500 kilometres (310 miles) of border.

In recent months, Tunisia closed the Ras Jedir and Dehiba border crossings twice - for 15 days each time - in response to attacks thought to have originated in Libya.

Tunisia has also built a 200km (120 mile) system of trenches and sand mounds in an attempt to boost border security.

Thousands of Tunisians have joined the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, as well as in Libya, where years of instability has allowed the group to gain a foothold.