The Chair of the African Union High-Level Committee on Libya, President of the Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso has asked the international community to help Libya restore its stability.
During his speech at the 36th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union held on 18-19 February in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Nguesso expressed his optimism about the ongoing peace process in Libya. He said: “I believe that we should go to the comprehensive national reconciliation conference.”
The President called on Libya’s strategic partners to help restore stability.
On Friday, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres stressed the “urgent need for a political will to break the protracted political stalemate in Libya, and achieve progress on multiple fronts.”
Addressing the latest meeting of the High-level Committee on Libya, taking place in Addis Ababa, the UN Chief stated that “progress is sorely needed towards holding elections and advancing gains in security, national reconciliation, and human rights.” He added that the UN “continues to be committed to Libyan-owned and Libyan-led solutions.”
Guterres noted that the UN has been “totally committed to overcoming the misunderstandings of the past. We have no agenda and no goal but one: to secure the right of the Libyan people to live in peace, to vote in free and fair elections, and to share in the prosperity of their country.”
“I share the growing frustrations of the Libyan people,” the Secretary-General said. “The absence of elections worsens economic insecurity, heightens political instability, risks renewed conflict, and raises the spectre of partition. But, without an agreement, the United Nations, in close collaboration with key Libyan stakeholders, the African Union and international partners, should propose and pursue alternative mechanisms towards finding solutions,” Guterres noted.
“There is no alternative to elections,” he stated. “They remain the only credible pathway to legitimate, unified governance.”
The UN Chief affirmed that the priority of the 5+5 Joint Military Commission (JMC) “must be the complete withdrawal of foreign fighters and mercenaries from Libya,” recalling that external interference had fuelled Libya’s descent into conflict.
