Multiple foreign armies steering Libya towards 'nightmare', United Nations envoy warns
Libya’s civil war is being driven out of control by world powers who are violating an arms embargo they themselves imposed, the UN’s envoy to the country has said.
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Ghassan Salame demanded a growing number of countries who have intervened take their “hands off Libya” and warned governments who persisted in meddling in the deepening civil would be drawn into a “nightmare.”
“Get out of the Libyan nightmare, that is what I am asking all the countries,” Mr Salame said. “Remain outside this situation because there is no military solution. The more we give hopes to this side or to that side, the more you render the political situation extremely different.”
He said an airstrike on a military school in Tripoli that killed at least 28 unarmed people, many of them teenagers, had been carried out by a foreign country.
Mr Salame said he did not want to single out individual governments, but the comments will be widely seen as a rebuke to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Russia, and France, all of which have either openly or covertly lent support to either side in the conflict.
His comments came as forces local to Khalifa Haftar, the general who is trying to overthrow the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), seized the coastal city of Sirte, which is strategically valuable because it lies close to an important oil terminal.
GNA officials said government forces had withdrawn from the city on Wednesday, although there were reports of sporadic resistance.
Turkey, which had already been supplying weapons and equipment to the GNA, began to deploy troops in support of Tripoli at the beginning of this week.
The Turkish government said the first troops to arrive would include air defence and electronic warfare units.
The move puts Turkey in conflict with the United Arab Emirates, Russia, and Egypt, which are believed to have deployed troops, mercenaries, and other assets in support of Gen Haftar, although none has done so openly. France has also been accused of lending him support.
A United Nations report published last month said an unnamed country’s airforce of carried out airstrikes against Tripoli on behalf Gen Haftar.
Gen Haftar, who controls a rival administration based in the eastern city of Benghazi, launched an offensive against Tripoli, the seat of the GNA, in April.
The war has become increasingly violent, with airstrikes and artillery hitting civilian areas with growing frequency.
Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, met European counterparts to discuss the Libyan crisis in Brussels on Tuesday.
Foreign ministers from Britain, France, Germany and Italy warned “external actors” to stay out of the conflict in Libya on Tuesday, urging all sides to commit to a negotiated peace.
The Greek, French, and Italian foreign ministers are to fly to Cairo for talks on Libya on Wednesday.