Tunisia's ruling Islamists accept plan to step down
Source: Reuters
Tunisia's Islamist government has agreed to resign after negotiations that start next week with secular opponents to form a caretaker administration and prepare for elections, a senior ruling party official said on Saturday.
The negotiations aim to end weeks of crisis involving the Islamist-led coalition government and secular opposition parties that has threatened to scuttle the transition to democracy in the North African country where the Arab Spring uprisings began in 2011.
Tunisia's powerful UGTT labour union, mediating between the two sides, proposed the ruling Islamist Ennahda party agree to three weeks of negotiations, after which it would step down and make way for an independent transitional administration and set a date for elections.
"The dialogue will start on Monday or Tuesday," Lotfi Zitoun, an Ennahda party official, said. "Ennahda has accepted the plan without conditions to get the country out of the political crisis."
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/09/28/uk-tunisia-crisis-idUKBRE98R05E20130928