For those who are attending, that’s how the U.N. mission to Libya announced the start of Geneva talks for Libya, in which none of the Libyan parties has participated, neither the Government of National Accord, nor the Libyan army.
Both parties have suspended their participation before the meeting even started, which prompted many analysts to say: Despite the western support, the meeting has failed before it began.
The Libyan Parliament said, the reason of suspending its participation in the meeting was that the U.N. mission has failed in meeting the Parliament’s demands.
“The U.N. mission in Libya wasn’t responsive enough and has not provided the Parliament with details of the independent figures who are going to participate in the dialogue,” Hamad al-Bandaq, a Libyan MP said.
Al-Bandaq held the mission responsible for the parliament’s failure to participate in the meeting through its [the mission] deliberate ambiguity, while arranging for the dialogue, which raised concerns among Parliament members. He pointed out that the suspension of the parliament’s participation will last until holding internal consultations between the presidency and members of the parliament in order to reach a final agreement.
According to analysts, the failure to reach a political solution for the Libyan crisis Is not only linked to its arrangements and the U.N. mission’s policies; it’s also linked to the demands of the Accord Government backed by Turkey, which demands represented in the withdrawal of the National Libyan Army from the territories captured by it since last April, and the return of the militias affiliated to it to those territories. These demands were expressed by a military commander of the Accord Government, Ibrahim al-Osta, who declared that the Accord Government would not participate in any dialogue before returning the Libyan status quo to what it looked like before April 2019. Analysts said that these demands are prohibitive, as the army will not allow the militias to redeploy in the territories under its control, particularly with the presence of thousands of mercenaries, and hundreds of Turkish troops supporting the Government of Accord.
On the other hand, the National Army, led by Major General Khalifa Haftar, was held responsible for complicating the situation in the Libya, together with the policies of the Accord Government, and the mercenaries that Turkey continues to dispatch.
The spokesperson of the Libyan Army, Brigadier General Ahmad al-Mismari, accused what he called “terrorist gangs” in indication to the Accord Government’s militias; of terrorizing civilians in the vicinity of Tripoli the capital, and targeting them with heavy arms.
“The Turkish-led terrorist gangs are terrorizing civilians in the vicinities of Tripoli, using heavy arms from different positions inside the capital, where they targeted civilians’ homes in the area of Qasr Bin Ghashir and Ein Zara,” al-Mismari posted that on his Facebook page. And this coincided with the announcement of the Libyan Army that it shot down a Turkish drone “Bayrakdar” in the south of the Libyan capital.
Despite the complications in the Libyan situation, and boycotting the meeting by the main parties in Libya, the U.N. mission to Libya says that the second round of the joint military committee’s talks forms one of the three tracks that the mission works on including the economic and political ones.
The mission confirms that it worked with both parties to draft a permanent ceasefire agreement, and to facilitate a safe return of civilians, with a joint monitoring mechanism led and supervised by the U.N. Support Mission in Libya and the Joint Military Committee.
On a regional level, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias pointed out that Greece is directly affected by the Libyan crisis, where, during his meeting with the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres he demanded that Greece should have a role in finding a solution for the Libyan conflict.
“Greece wants to prevent any negative developments in the Libyan crisis including illegal acts that incite conflict and threaten peace and security in the region,” the Greek minister added, referring to Turkey’s continuous violations of UN Security Council resolutions, which prohibit sending arms and militants to the Libyan territories.
In the light of these circumstances, analysts questioned the useless international efforts to resolve the Libyan crisis, amid absence of seriousness of the international community to end the flow of fighters, and work to stop the lifeline of militias, which extend from Turkey to Tripoli, especially with the issue of Bana cargo vessel detention by Italian authorities in the port of Genoa, after a report by a Turkish officer, in which he confirmed that the vessel was loaded with weapons and was destined from the Turkish port of Antalya to the militia-controlled port of Tripoli.
