On Monday, Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry said that Turkish policies in the Mediterranean region were of great concern at the regional and international levels.
In an interview with ‘Al-Ghad TV’ channel, Shoukry said that the maritime demarcation agreement signed between Turkey and Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) was illegal. He also warned that regional powers are intervening in Libya, threatening the stability of the Middle East and Mediterranean region.
Militias in Libya are seeking to carry out their agendas at the expense of the Libyan people and he urged international powers to confront terrorist organizations in Libya.
In June, Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah El-Sisi launched a new political initiative to resolve the Libyan crisis, dubbed the ‘Cairo Declaration’. This initiative is “a message to the world”, El-Sisi said, and expressed a firm desire to enforce the Libyan people’s goals of stability, development, and sovereignty.
The announcement came during a press conference in Cairo in the presence of Libyan House of Representatives (HoR) speaker Ageela Saleh and the Commander-in-Chief of the Libyan National Army (LNA) Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
El-Sisi’s plan will respect all international efforts to resolve the Libyan crisis and includes an initial 48-hour ceasefire throughout Libya.
It calls for the dismantling of militias and handing their weapons over to the LNA, expelling foreign mercenaries from the country, and resuming the 5+5 Libyan Joint Military Commission under the auspices of the UN.
The declaration also demands fair representation for all three Libyan regions, holding free and fair elections and the launching of a constitutional declaration regulating the country’s political process.
“Egypt looks forward to cooperation from all nations in supporting this step towards Libya’s strong return to the international community”, El-Sisi said. This declaration is the result of efforts throughout the past few years to heal the rift in Libya and will be important to ending the violence in Libya, he added.