UAE travel ban on Tunisian women prompted by 'security concerns'

A ban on Tunisian women traveling to the UAE was prompted by "security concerns", Tunisian officials said on Monday.

The latest news comes days after it was first reported that Tunisian women were being banned from Emirates Airlines flights to the Gulf state. 

Over the weekend, the move sparked fury across the North African country and led its officials to ban Emirates Airlines flights from landing at all airports in Tunisia.

According to Al Arabiya, "the Tunisian Ministry of Transport announced that the suspension of Emirates Airlines flights to and from Tunisia are only until the airline finds a suitable solution to operate its flights in accordance with international laws and treaties".

In the most recent official Tunisian statement on the matter, Saida Qrash, Tunisia's official Presidential Spokeswoman, said she understood the UAE's security concerns. 

"We have summoned the UAE ambassador and we tried to get an explanation why those women were not permitted to travel on Emirates Airlines to Dubai," she said.  

She then added the decision was "a UAE sovereign decision based on credible security information".

Qrash also stated that "security agencies in some countries recently warned that a number of Tunisian women or women carrying Tunisian passports returned from Syria and Iraq where they had fought with Daesh".

However, she didn't elaborate on whether this played a role which prompted the UAE to ban those individuals. 

In a statement he posted on his official Twitter account, the UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, also commented on the matter.

In a tweet he posted on Sunday, Gargash wrote:  

"We communicated with our brothers in Tunisia about the recent security procedures that have been imposed. In the UAE, a place where we are proud of our experience in empowering women, we highly appreciate Tunisian women. We respect them and value their pioneering experience. Let's work together to avoid attempts at misinterpretation and misrepresentation."