The Egyptian Foreign Minister, Badr Abdel Aty, emphasized the importance of unifying Arab efforts, particularly from neighboring countries, to encourage Libyan parties to move forward with implementing the roadmap proposed by the UN envoy, Hanna. Last Thursday, Al-Wasat reported that Abdel Aty’s remarks pertain to forming a new unified government in Libya to prepare for holding simultaneous presidential and legislative elections as soon as possible.
Abdel Aty’s statements came during his participation in the meeting of the trilateral mechanism of Libya’s neighboring countries hosted by Algeria, with the participation of his counterpart, Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf, and Tunisian Mohamed Ali Nafti. He mentioned that the Libyan political solution is the only way to end the crisis in the country and must be entirely Libyan-owned and led through dialogue and consensus among the Libyan parties themselves under the auspices of the United Nations, without any impositions or external interventions.
He stated that “Cairo will spare no effort in supporting the Libyan brothers and backing the UN and regional efforts aimed at unifying Libyan institutions and ending the existing division.” Libya is suffering from a complex political crisis, with two rival governments, one in the east led by Osama Hammad, appointed by the House of Representatives, and the other in the west led by Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, who refuses to hand over power except through elections.
Presidential elections were scheduled to be held on December 24, 2021, but political disagreements among the conflicting parties, in addition to the dispute over the election law, prevented their completion.
