UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations and Germany are co-chairing a ministerial meeting on Monday of world powers and other countries with interests in Libya’s long-running civil war in hopes of promoting a cease-fire between its rival governments.
Germany’s deputy UN ambassador Günter Sautter said Friday the virtual meeting is “an important follow-up” to a conference of the same parties in Berlin on Jan. 19 that approved a 55-point road map to peace in oil-rich Libya and agreed to respect a much-violated arms embargo, hold off on military support to the warring parties, and push them to reach a full cease-fire.
Stephanie Williams, the top UN official for Libya, warned last month that the conflict-torn North African country is at “a decisive turning point,” with foreign backers of its rival governments pouring in weapons — in violation of the Berlin agreement — and the misery of its people compounded by the coronavirus pandemic.
Sautter said Monday’s meeting “comes at a crucial moment.” He pointed to “some encouraging developments in Libya” including talks on security, “the long-term agreements on transition, and progress on the question of oil exports.”
In the years after the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi, Libya has sunk further into turmoil and is now divided between two rival administrations, based in the country’s east and west, with an array of fighters and militias — backed by various foreign powers — allied with each side.
Tensions escalated further when east-based forces, under commander Khalifa Haftar, launched an offensive in April 2019 trying to capture the capital, Tripoli. But Haftar’s campaign collapsed in June when militias backing the UN-supported government in Tripoli, with Turkish support, gained the upper hand.
Sautter said Germany hopes participants in Monday’s meeting — co-chaired by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas — will renew their commitments to the Berlin road map and its implementation.
“We hope that they will call on the parties to accelerate efforts to achieve a cease-fire,” Sautter said. “We hope that continuing blatant violations of the arms embargo will end.”
UN experts monitoring sanctions against Libya said in a report, seen by The Associated Press last month, that the arms embargo was being violated by both sides and their foreign backers, and remains “totally ineffective.”
They said 11 companies also violated the arms embargo, including the Wagner Group, a private Russian security company that the panel said in May provided between 800 and 1,200 mercenaries to Haftar.
Sautter said Germany also hopes Monday’s meeting “will strengthen the United Nations as key facilitator of the political dialogue in Libya.”
Key players to meet virtually to push for Libya cease-fire
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Key players to meet virtually to push for Libya cease-fire
- ‘We hope that they will call on the parties to accelerate efforts to achieve a cease-fire’
Turkish and Greek leaders set for talks on migration, maritime borders
- Fifteen migrants died in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Chios last week after their boat collided with a Greek coast guard vessel and sank in the Aegean Sea off the Turkish coast
ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will host Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday for talks likely to focus on migration and longstanding maritime disputes, as the NATO allies and historic rivals try to build on warming ties.
Fifteen migrants died in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Chios last week after their boat collided with a Greek coast guard vessel and sank in the Aegean Sea off the Turkish coast.
Mitsotakis will be accompanied by ministers responsible for foreign affairs, finance, development and migration, Greek officials said.
Developments in the Middle East, Iran and Ukraine, migration, trade and organized crime are also likely to be on the agenda.
Greek Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Lana Zochiou said on Tuesday the aim was “to assess the progress of bilateral cooperation” and “to keep communication channels open to defuse any potential crises.”
Turkiye is a transit country for migrants seeking to reach the European Union via Greece. Ankara says the EU has not fully delivered on commitments under a 2016 migration deal and Athens wants Turkiye to do more to curb irregular crossings.
Despite a thaw in rhetoric since a 2023 declaration on friendly relations, the neighbors are at odds over maritime boundaries in the Aegean, an area widely believed to hold energy resources and with implications for airspace and military activity.
Ankara said last month it had issued a maritime notice urging Greece to coordinate research activities in areas of the Aegean that Turkiye considers part of its continental shelf.
Greece’s foreign minister had said Athens planned to extend its territorial waters further, including potentially in the Aegean.
In 1995, Turkiye’s parliament declared a casus belli — a cause for war — should Greece unilaterally extend its territorial waters beyond six nautical miles in the Aegean, a stance Athens says violates international maritime law. Greece says it wants only to discuss demarcation of maritime zones.
