Tunisia has recommenced diplomatic relations with Syria at a consular level after a three-year hiatus in Tunis-Damascus ties, a report says.

Tunisian authorities have appointed Ibrahim al-Fawri as the North African state’s consul general to Syria, according to the report released on Friday by the Tunisian Press Agency, quoting unidentified Foreign Ministry sources as saying.

Back in April, Tunisian Foreign Minister Taieb Baccouche announced his country’s decision to reestablish relations with Syria, acknowledging that the diplomatic freeze between the two states has been hard on the estimated 6,000 Tunisian nationals living in Syria.

Former Tunisian President Mohamed Moncef Marzouki cut ties with the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in February 2012, one year after the beginning of the crisis in the Arab country.

Syria has been battling foreign-sponsored militancy since March 2011. Estimates by the United Nations show that the violence fueled by Takfiri terrorist groups has so far left over 230,000 people dead and another seven million displaced.