“I understand the necessity if – and this is a big if – we decide that the National Unity Government is a viable entity”, says J. Peter Pham, an Africa expert with the Atlantic Council and a frequent adviser to the White House, Congress and the U.N. “We would like it to be, but the jury is still out on it”.
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World powers, including the USA have said that they are ready to arm Libya’s UN-backed unity government, to help it fight the so-called Islamic State (IS) group.
“We will fully support these efforts while continuing to reinforce the United Nations arms embargo”. In a communique obtained by The Associated Press, the USA, four other permanent U.N. Security Council members and the more than 15 other nations participating at the talks say they are “ready to respond to the Libyan government’s requests for training and equipping” government forces.
Simultaneously, however, Libya’s internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) will ask for a strict embargo on any sales of weapons to forces outside the GNA. The aim is to give the internationally recognized administration more muscle in fighting Islamic State radicals and end its rivalry with a group to the east claiming legitimacy.
“While deploring recent oil and arms transactions made outside the scope of the GNA, we reaffirm our commitment to upholding the arms embargo and measures concerning illicit oil exports” under U.N. Security Council resolutions, it said.
The communique said: “We look forward to partnering with the GNA and neighbouring countries to tackle the threat posed throughout the Mediterranean and on its land borders by criminal organisations engaged in all forms of smuggling and trafficking, including in human beings”. Morocco was represented at the meeting by Minister Delegate to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mbarka Bouaida. The challenges are daunting.
Major world powers are banking on the GNA, which arrived in Tripoli on March 30, to end the violent chaos that Libyans have endured since Muammar Gaddafi’s fall five years ago.
The Arab country, which is separated from Europe only through a relatively small stretch of the Mediterranean Sea, has also seen some high-profile attacks by Daesh, a major terror organization which is mainly based in Iraq and Syria.
It has won the backing of factions in western Libya and on Monday the GNA’s leadership issued a statement commissioning its ministers to start work in a caretaker basis in Tripoli, until they take the oath of office.
The council was created under a U.N.-brokered unity deal struck in December to reconcile Libya’s many political divisions.
Seraj’s government is supposed to replace two rival administrations – one based in Tripoli, the other in eastern Libya – that have been competing for power and oil wealth in the OPEC member since 2014.
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The announcement stemmed from a summit in Vienna convened by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry with his Italian counterpart, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, and raised immediate concerns about the prospect of sending lethal supplies into a country already rife with weapons.
