LONDON: US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called for the “immediate withdrawal of foreign forces” from Libya during a meeting of the Group of Seven nations on Tuesday.
G-7 foreign ministers met in London for their first face-to-face talks in more than two years, with calls for urgent action to tackle the most pressing global issues.
Libya has been engulfed in chaos since a NATO-backed intervention ended Muammar Qaddafi’s four-decade rule in 2011 and has been split since 2014 between warring administrations in the west and east.
During the meeting, Blinken renewed Washington’s support for the Libyan government to hold elections in December and said the US “stands with the Libyan people to find a UN-facilitated political solution to the conflict.”
UN sponsored talks produced a new interim government for Libya in early February aimed at resolving a decade of chaos by holding national elections later this year.
At the @G7, the U.S. renewed support for the Libyan government to hold December 2021 elections and for the immediate withdrawal of foreign forces. We stand with the Libyan people to find a @UN-facilitated political solution to the conflict.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) May 4, 2021
The latest UN process also involved a cease-fire, but not all terms of the truce have been met.
G-7 foreign ministers from the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US also held a separate session on the war and humanitarian crisis in Syria.
“My G-7 counterparts and I reaffirmed our commitment to a political resolution for ending the conflict in Syria and support to the reauthorization of the UN cross-border aid mechanism,” Blinken said in a tweet following the meeting.
He said they would continue working to advance all aspects of UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which calls for a cease-fire and political settlement, and “end the suffering of Syrians.”
My @G7 counterparts and I reaffirmed our commitment to a political resolution for ending the conflict in Syria and support to the reauthorization of the UN cross-border aid mechanism. We’ll continue working to advance all aspects of UNSCR 2254 and end the suffering of Syrians.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) May 4, 2021
On Iran, Blinken said they have had serious discussions in Vienna over the past few weeks and that some progress has been made, “at least in demonstrating the seriousness with which the United States takes the effort to return to mutual compliance” with the Iranian nuclear deal.
“We still have a long way to go if we are going to get anywhere, and we still have to see whether Iran is willing and able to make the necessary decisions on its part for returning to compliance,” Blinken told the Financial Times.
Britain currently holds the rotating G-7 presidency and is set to host a leaders summit in Cornwall next month.
(With AP and Reuters)
