UN says Libyan sides sign countrywide cease-fire deal

PTI, Oct 23, 2020, 5:48 PM IST

Geneva: The United Nations said Friday that the two sides in Libyan military talks had reached a “historic achievement” with a permanent cease-fire agreement across the war-torn northern African country.

After mediation this week led by UN envoy for Libya Stephanie Turco Williams, the 5+5 Joint Military Commission reached what the UN called an “important turning point towards peace and stability in Libya.”

Details were not immediately available, but the two sides will be taking part in a signing ceremony in Geneva on Friday morning.

Libya is split between a UN-supported government in the capital, Tripoli, and rival authorities based in the east. The two sides are backed by an array of local militias as well as regional and foreign powers.

The country was plunged into chaos after the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

“The road to a permanent cease-fire deal was often long and difficult,” Williams said in a press conference in Geneva, noting that there remained a “great deal of work” to do in the coming weeks to implement the commitments.

She expressed hope the agreement will succeed “in ending the suffering of Libyans and allowing those displaced by the conflict to return to their homes.”

“We have had enough suffering, enough bloodshed,” said Ali Abushahma, the head of the delegation and a field commander for the UN-supported administration in Tripoli.

“We hope we will change the suffering on all the territories of Libya, especially in the south. I appeal to all Libya: Be one hand,” he said.

The meetings this week mark the fourth round of talks involving the Joint Military Commission under the watch of Williams, a former U.S. State Department official.

The Geneva-based military talks come ahead of a political forum in Tunisia in November. That forum aims to “generate consensus on a unified governance framework and arrangements that will lead to the holding of national elections,” the UN mission said.

On Wednesday, Williams had said the two warring factions agreed on issues that “directly impact the lives and welfare of the Libyan people,” citing agreements to open air and land routes in the country, to work to ease inflammatory rhetoric in Libyan media and to help kickstart Libya’s vital oil industry.

Libya’s prized light crude has long featured in the northern African country’s civil war, with rival militias and foreign powers jostling for control of Africa’s largest oil reserves.

Last month, the two sides reached preliminary agreements to exchange prisoners and open up air and land transit across the country’s divided territory. This breakthrough also accompanied the resumption of oil production after a months-long blockade by powerful tribes allied with army commander Khalifa Haftar.

Haftar’s forces launched an offensive in April 2019 to try and capture Tripoli, the seat of the UN-supported government in the west. But his campaign collapsed in June.

Fighting has since died down amid international pressure on both sides to avert an attack on the strategic city of Sirte, the gateway to Libya’s major oil export terminals.