U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paolo Gentilon, along with other United Nations delegates led an worldwide diplomatic effort Sunday to get Libya’s warring political groups to sign a deal to form a unity government.
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“We call on all parties to accept an immediate, comprehensive cease-fire in all parts of Libya” and sign that deal, as they have pledged, in Morocco on Wednesday, the worldwide participants said in a joint statement.
Libya’s rival factions have given themselves just five more days to reach a UN-backed national unity government agreement created to end their conflict.
After the ouster of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the differences between various groups of anti-Gaddafi rebels left cracks in the new government in Tripoli.
It has had rival administrations since August 2014, when an Islamist-backed militia alliance overran Tripoli, forcing the recognised government to take refuge in the east.
Speaking in the Tunisian capital at a UN-facilitated meeting on Libyan political dialogue on Friday, Martin Kobler, a German career diplomat and United Nations representative, said: “I’m very happy to have this agreement around the table”.
That deal was rejected by Libya’s internationally recognized parliament, which is based in eastern Libya, and by the rival General National Congress in Tripoli.
Libya’s oil industry has been largely crippled by the crisis.
The plan would extend the reconstituted parliament’s term by one year and allow for an automatic one-year extension of its mandate beyond that, if necessary.
With around 3,000 fighters, Islamic State has taken over the city of Sirte.
Mr. Kobler stressed that the meeting in Tunis revealed that the Libyans expect support from the Security Council and from the wider worldwide community, and he emphasized that this support is indispensable to help them to forge “peace through unity”.
Most representatives of the two rival governments now in power in Libya “have come together and are ready to sign an agreement, and they refuse to be blocked by one or two people or individual politics”, Kerry told reporters.
Earlier in December, the UN Security Council expressed grave concern over the expansion of Daesh, an organization outlawed in many countries including Russian Federation, in Libya. They also menaced sanctions against those impeding the restoration of peace and stability, Washington Post reported. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article.
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