The German Foreign Minister believes that international forces supporting both sides contribute to this by continuing to violate the UN arms embargo on Libya.
Germany condemns the recent attacks on the centre and airport of Tripoli and stresses that the parties to the conflict in Libya wrongly believe that they will resolve the conflict militarily in their favour. This was stated in a statement issued on Thursday by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas after consultations with his French and Italian colleagues and EU foreign minister Josep Borrel.
“We are watching the fighting in Libya escalate with anxiety. We condemn, above all, the recent attacks on the centre and airport of Tripoli and the increasing civilian casualties”, – Maas said. – “Instead of finally observing a truce, the parties to the conflict still wrongly believe that it can be won militarily”, – the German minister stressed, adding that “international forces supporting both sides are contributing to this by continuing to violate the UN arms embargo [on Libya].
“We cannot and will not relax our efforts”, – Maas assured. The conflict settlement process, which began in January after the Berlin conference on Libya, will continue, he said. He believes that the EU military operation off the coast of Libya, known as IRINI, will contribute to the implementation of the military embargo.
“Our goals remain a sustainable truce, a political solution with the participation of all groups in Libya and the preservation of the country’s territorial integrity”, – Maas said. He called for the appointment of a new UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Libya as soon as possible after Hassan Salame resigned in early March.
“It is now important to keep all parties on board and to remind them of their responsibilities and promises at the Berlin conference on Libya”, – Maas said.
Libya has two parallel executive bodies: the Government of National Concord (GNC), sitting in Tripoli, Faiz Sarraj, and the interim cabinet of Abdullah Abdurrahman al-Thani, working with Parliament in the east and supported by the Libyan National Army (LNA), Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. For more than a year now, rival camps have been fighting for the country’s main city after Haftar launched an offensive on Tripoli on April 4, 2019, with the aim, he said, of freeing the capital from terrorists.
The Cabinet in Tripoli has responded by mobilizing all armed groups under its control, formally seeking Turkey’s assistance on the basis of a memorandum of military cooperation signed with it late last November. On 27 April, the LNA announced that it had taken over the State, at which time Haftar nullified the Sherat political agreement that had served as the basis for the TNC. The Field Marshal’s decision was negatively perceived by most states. The PNC called it “an attempt of a new coup”, and later rejected the army’s proposal for a ceasefire during Ramadan, a month of fasting sacred to Muslims.