On Friday, during a joint press conference with the Syrian Foreign Minister, Faisal Mekdad, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “It was the United States that stood in the way of appointing a new UN envoy to Libya for months while speaking without evidence of a violation of the arms export embargo.” This was Lavrov’s latest response to US State Secretary Mike Pompeo’s accusations that Moscow is fomenting instability in Libya.
Lavrov added that the post of the UN envoy to Libya has been vacant since March and was filled only on Wednesday.
He stated: “Everyone knows that the Americans were resisting the UN secretary-general’s move to appoint an Algerian envoy to this post. “Later the African Union’s request to appoint a diplomat from Ghana was blocked by the Americans and these facts are known in the world,” he added.
Mike Pompeo had also accused Moscow and a number of other countries of violating the arms embargo on Libya imposed by a UN Security Council resolution. Lavrov retorted that “this topic is being talked about repeatedly, but no one has provided any facts.”
He went on saying: “The Americans and other Western countries allied to the United States have a similar tactic: publicly accuse without providing facts,” and he stressed that “there are no facts.”
On Tuesday, Pompeo accused Russia of fomenting instability in Mediterranean countries, including Libya, in response to remarks by his Russian counterpart. At the Mediterranean Dialogue Forum in Rome, Lavrov had accused the United States of playing political games in the region.
