Interim President receives Culture Minister

Interim President Foued Mebazaa conferred, on Wednesday, with Culture Minister Ezzeddine Bach Chaouch, who briefed him on the Ministry's activities and programmes. The meeting turned, notably, on restoration of the Carthage archeological and historical site, as part of UNESCO's protection of archeological sites classified as World Heritage. The President of the Republic called upon the Culture Ministry and the Carthage municipality to preserve this heritage, taking into consideration the social dimensions inherent to the fact that the former regime had changed the status of the archeological site into a building site. He became acquainted, in this regard, with the furtherance state of works of the ministerial commission in charge of the file and of studying these cases one by one. Besides, the meeting turned on administration of the Tunisian Sciences, Letters and Arts Academy, "Beit el-Hikma." Mr. Mebazaa laid emphasis on the need to make a clear distinction between this institution's scientific work and its administrative and financial management, underscoring the need to speed up selection of academics among the highly experienced and skilled scientific, cultural and artistic competences in all specialities, as members of the Academy council to help it meet periodically.