WASHINGTON: Libya, torn by a growing political divide that threatens to engulf its oilfields, could become the next Syria if it does not patch its divided government and get help battling Islamist militants, the country’s foreign minister said late on Tuesday.
“If we don’t do the right thing now, in two years’ time we could have — hopefully not — a repeat of what happened in Syria in 2014 because the international community didn’t react adequately,” Foreign Minister Mohamed Dayri said.
Dayri represents the internationally recognised government in eastern Libya, which is locked in an increasingly violent struggle for power with a rival faction, known as Libya Dawn, that seized control in the capital of Tripoli in August.
In an ominous turn of events, a force allied to the self-declared Tripoli government earlier this month moved to seize Libya’s two biggest oil export ports, Es Sider and Ras Lanuf. Fighting has since spread to a third oil port.
Dayri repeated his government’s charge that forces attacking the oil facilities included elements of Ansar Al Sharia. The United States has designated Ansar Al Sharia as a terrorist group and accuses it of involvement in the deadly September 2012 attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
US officials said that while they see Ansar Al Sharia as a problem, the name is sometimes used loosely as a label that covers other militant groups, including Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Various Islamist militants — as well as secularist groups — are trying to take over the oil facilities, the officials say.
Asked whether he was worried that Libya was not high on the list of US President Barack Obama’s priorities, the foreign minister said, “I do worry about that.” He said he spoke to a United Nations session in New York on Friday and met with officials in Washington to “draw the international community’s attention to the rising threats of international terrorism in Libya and the need to fight it”.
Dayri said the eastern-based government of Prime Minister Abdullah Al Thinni faces what he called “a serious financial crunch, funding crunch” and may seek international loans.
Al Thinni’s government does not have access to oil revenues routed to the Central Bank in Tripoli. “We can get loans, and this is what we may be seeking to achieve in the coming days and weeks,” Dayri said, adding that he held discussions at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund on Monday night.
Also, the UN Special Envoy for Libya, Bernadino Leon, informed the UN Security Council that the rival factions in Libya have agreed in principle to hold a new round of peace talks early in the new year. The world body had planned to hold a second round of talks last week to end a confrontation between two rival governments and parliaments, but it said a military escalation was undermining its efforts.
The new talks have been repeatedly delayed due to difficulties getting the parties to agree to meet. UN Special Envoy Bernadino Leon briefed the 15-nation Security Council via video link.
“He (Leon) said he had agreement ‘in principle’ that talks would start on the 5th,” a diplomat who attended the closed-door meeting said on condition of anonymity. “He also set out three key issues for a roadmap — a national unity government, stabilizing the country through ceasefires of militias and a new constitution.”
Chad UN Ambassador Mahamat Zene Charif, council president this month, confirmed the January 5 date, adding that council members expressed concern about the continued fighting and flow of weapons into Libya.
Charif noted that Leon said the parties had agreed on the roadmap. A UN official said that getting the various factions to meet was like “herding heavily armed cats.”
Libya has had two governments and parliaments competing for legitimacy since a group called Libya Dawn seized the capital in August, installing its cabinet and forcing the government of Al Thinni to the east.
World powers fear the Libyan conflict will lead to civil war as former rebel groups that helped oust the country’s former leader, the late Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011 fight for power and a share of its vast oil reserves. Leon has said that the Libya dialogue would include members of the General National Congress, the country’s previous assembly reinstated by the new rulers in the capital Tripoli.
Hundreds of civilians in Libya have been killed in fighting since late August, the UN said, warning commanders of armed groups that they could face prosecution for possible war crimes, including executions and torture.
The conflict has driven at least 120,000 people from their homes and caused a humanitarian crisis, said a joint report by the UN human rights office and UN Support Mission in Libya that also documents shelling of civilian areas. reuters
