The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, has expressed his concern about the failure to resolve the issue of appointing a new United Nations Special Envoy to Libya. He claimed that the United States has obstructed the issue for several months.
Lavrov said, “We are concerned that the issue of appointing a special envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Libya has not been resolved. American colleagues have been blocking this decision for many months, ignoring the position of the African Union, trying to dictate their conditions, and refusing to find a compromise that satisfies all parties.”
He stressed that, “movement on the political track has stopped and recent meetings have not resulted in the progress everyone hopes.”
According to the FM, the main task of Moscow at this stage is to provide international assistance to Libyans in order to overcome the lack of trust between the parties and find a common solution. He added that the situation does not need attempts to impose ready-made prescriptions by foreign interference or identifying one of the Libyan parties as a priority.
The Libyan parties have held several meetings, in addition to the consultative meeting of the Libyan Parliament in Tangiers, and a series of intra-Libyan talks held in Morocco. These meetings aimed to support the political settlement of the conflict, starting with the political dialogue sessions that led to the signing of the Skhirat Agreement in 2015, and then the Libyan dialogue sessions in Bouznika.