Tunisia began voter registration on Monday for heavily-delayed legislative and presidential elections due to take place later this year.

The elections would consolidate the gains of an accord in January to end months of political crisis, which had blocked the democratic transition in the birthplace of the Arab Spring.

Tunisia's main Islamist party on Thursday urged politicians to agree on a "consensual" presidential candidate, to assuage tensions that have plagued the country since the 2011 revolution.

"We call on political parties to find a consensual candidate for the presidency, someone independent or who belongs to a political party," said Ali Larayedh, a former premier and senior Ennahda member.

Tunisia's electoral commission on Monday proposed holding long-planned parliamentary elections in October and a presidential poll in November after the political parties agreed a deal following months of negotiations.

"The draft timetable that we have presented (proposes) legislative elections on October 26, the first round of the presidential election on November 23, and the second round on December 28," the commission's chairman, Chafik Sarsar, told journalists.

France announced Saturday that it has deported a Tunisian who was accused of recruiting young jihadists to fight in Syria, deeming him a threat to national security.

The interior ministry said the 28-year-old was expelled to Tunisia on Thursday "as a matter of absolute urgency in view of the threat that his presence posed for public safety and state security."

Tunisia's political parties on Friday agreed to hold legislative and then presidential elections in 2014, a mediator said, the first agreement on the electoral timetable after months of delays.

The order the elections were to be held in had been the subject of debate between parties.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb said Friday it was responsible for a recent attack on the home of Tunisia's interior minister that killed four policemen, the first such claim in the country.

"A group of lions... went to cut off the head of the criminal Lotfi Ben Jeddou at his home... and God allowed them to kill a number of his personal guards," an AQIM statement said.

Tunisia said Saturday it has postponed an emergency meeting with its North African neighbors to discuss the chaotic situation in Libya, citing a lack of "foresight".

With lawlessness in Libya rising, Tunisia had been due to hold a session on Sunday with other member states of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) to find a political solution to the unrest in the mostly desert nation.

Suspected Islamist gunmen killed four policemen at the family home of Tunisia's interior minister, officials said Wednesday, describing it as a "revenge" attack for progress in the fight against jihadists.

The overnight assault on Lotfi Ben Jeddou's home at Kasserine, in the western border region, was reminiscent of violence in 2013, when two politicians were assassinated and jihadists killed 20 security force members.

A Tunisian court delayed for the third time Tuesday the appeals trial of Islamists accused of attacking the U.S. embassy in 2012, with numerous defendants and lawyers absent.

The appeals court in Tunis adjourned the trial until July 1 to appoint a lawyer for two of the accused, the judge said after a brief hearing.

A court decided Monday to dissolve a pro-Islamist group accused of inciting violence, as sought by Tunisia's powerful UGTT workers union.

The court ruled that the League for the Protection of the Revolution (LPR) "was contravening laws on the organisation and creation of associations, and decided to dissolve it and all its branches," court spokesman Soufiene Sliti told Agence France Presse.