Libya Situation A Scandal – OpEd

The UN’s Libya envoy reported “progress” in talks between military representatives of the country’s warring parties on coming up with a lasting ceasefire that could include a UN monitoring role. “Progress has been made on many important issues.

According to that  Ghassan Salame high-ranking military officers from both sides in the Libyan civil war told reporters in Geneva,  there were still “two or three points of divergence” to build a lasting ceasefire.

But Khalifa Haftar the general who leads the self-styled Libyan National Army, based in the country’s east had refused to attend. On the other side, the talks had been proposed by world leaders at a summit in Berlin more than a fortnight ago.

In addition, Ghassan Salame, said rival military leaders are negotiating the remaining sticking points in a cease-fire deal. Those include the return of internally displaced people, the disarmament of armed groups and ways to monitor the truce, also the  cease-fire agreement is made of a number of issues, and there have been points of convergence on many points. And there are points of divergence.

He mention the latest round of fighting in oil-rich Libya erupted last April it was difficult when eastern-based forces under the command of Khalifa Haftar laid siege to Tripoli in a bid to wrest power from the U.N backed government led by Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj.

Libya has suffered from the embargo had been violated incessantly”, and once again appealed to the countries involved in providing arms and mercenary soldiers to desist. “More than 20m pieces of weaponry are already in the country and that is enough. The country does not need that equipment. The aims from the conference to turn a nominal truce into a lasting and sustainable ceasefire, covering the removal of heavy weaponry.

Moreover, there are no plans for the EU to enforce the ceasefire, merely to check its observance and report any breaches. A proposal from the EU to provide ceasefire monitors will be put on the table at some point, but it will be for the Libyan negotiators to decide if they welcomed this help.

Both leaders sent delegations of military officials to represent them at the Geneva talks. The cease-fire talks come amid intensified diplomacy among world powers seeking to end the conflict that has ravaged Libya for nine years as it destroyed the Libyan society.

Both of the leaders depend on external forces to support them in terms of money, weapons and strength the first leader Haftar’s forces, which control much of Libya’s east and south, he got his military support   military from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia. The second leader got the support from Turkey, Italy and Qatar prop up the embattled Tripoli-based government, Turkey has sent as many as 2,000 Turkmen fighters from Syria to counter the LNA.

Haftar’s forces to end their blockade of the Libyan oil industry, saying their actions have meant Libyan oil production has collapsed to 70,000 barrels a day, down from 1.3m barrels a day before the fighting began. He said it would require international action to lift the blockade, but warned that with 90% of Libyan government revenue dependent on oil and gas exports.

On the other hand, Haftar has partly imposed the blockade to weaken the GNA but also to protest at the way in which the Tripoli-based Central Bank distributes the oil revenues supplied by the Libyan National Oil Corporation.

We find that the beneficiary Turkey and the United Arab Emirates – sense that the political opprobrium of arming their sponsor is outweighing the benefit of developing long-term influence over such an oil-rich state. Also Europe,  taking a more prominent role in recent weeks been marginalised from resolving the dispute with Turkey and Russia.

The UN security council is still working on a resolution demanding the ceasefire is respected,  but the international divisions are again making agreement difficult.