Tunisian President Kais Saied said on Friday he wants to see Tunisia and Syria appoint ambassadors to their countries. "A decision must be taken on this issue," Saied told foreign minister Nabil Ammar during a meeting, according to a video posted on Facebook by the president's office. Tunisia cut off diplomatic relations with Syria nearly a decade ago to protest Bashar Assad's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in 2011 that developed into civil war in which hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed and millions sent fleeing. Tunisia reinstituted a limited diplomatic mission to Syria in 2017, in part to help track more than 3,000 Tunisian militants fighting in Syria. Tunisia reinforced last month its diplomatic mission in Damascus with a diplomat, but with the president announcing that a decision must be taken, it is widely expected that the foreign ministry will name an ambassador in Damascus soon.