On Wednesday, the High Representative for Security and Foreign Policy in the European Union, Josep Borrell, said that the presence of militias and foreign fighters in Libya endangers the stability of Libya, calling for their full withdrawal from the North African country.
In press statements, on the sidelines of the Berlin II Conference on Libya, he confirmed that it is the only way to ensure that the ceasefire will continue.
He also voiced the European Union’s readiness to engage and support the political process in Libya, saying, “We have to help to build a functioning Libyan state. Only a functioning Libyan state can help us to control migration. It is a concern for us, it is a humanitarian problem, but it will not be solved without a fully functioning Libyan state. We are going to work on all that.”
Germany hosted the first round of the UN-sponsored talks on 19 January 2020, in a bid to end hostilities. The second round of talks was the first time Libya’s transitional Government of National Unity (GNU) was represented at such an event.
Helped by the United Nations, Libya has over the past year made swift progress in addressing a decade of chaos and violence that at one stage threatened to escalate into a full-scale regional conflict.