Thanks for your very interesting commentary.

I would like to come back to the issue of cooperation between Algeria and Tunisia: looking back at this story, there were two periods of…

Thanks for your very interesting commentary.

I would like to come back to the issue of cooperation between Algeria and Tunisia: looking back at this story, there were two periods of it.

1.) immediately following the revolution, when there was plenty of mutual suspicion (especially Algerians suspected that Tunisians would be supervised by specific Western powers), and

2.) another, running ever since negotiations between two governments and establishment of direct links between two military commands, in late 2011.

While there is little doubt that this cooperation directly contributed to the Tunisian success of 2013 (which is little surprise considering the wealth of intelligence and experience on Algerian side), and I would agree that I should have emphasised this better in my article, the ‘mutual suspicion phase’ cannot be ignored.

It was a very unpleasant period for both sides, and there were tensions ‘well beyond’ the ‘usual suspicion’ at that time.