Moscow says there is no Military Solution to Libya Conflict

At a press conference, held after talks with the foreign ministers of India and China, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the crisis in Libya could not be solved militarily.

Over the past few years, the supremacy of any of Libya’s sides could only be temporary, the situation on the ground was changing all the time, and the attacking side was never ready for negotiations.

So Moscow sees no other option, apart from ceasing fire immediately and resolving all the other problems through negotiations, based on the understanding reached in the declaration adopted at the Berlin conference.

The Russian foreign minister called on foreign players in Libya to promote an inclusive intra-Libyan dialogue. On one side we have the UN and NATO, backed by Italy, Britain, France and Turkey, while the Libyan freedom fighters are backed by Egypt, Qatar and Russia.

The Libyan oil conflict is in a very tense stage and additionally flooding the country with arms, of course, makes it difficult to move to peaceful settlement as agreed in the UN. The arms are delivered to Libya by the sea, in particular.

The monitoring of the United Nations Security Council’s arms embargo on Libya cannot focus on one warring party exclusively, the head of the Department of International Organizations at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Pyotr Ilyichev, said, noting that the European Union’s maritime monitoring has not been highly effective so far.

Back in 2016, the UN Security Council introduced, under its Resolution 2292, a special inspection regime off Libya’s coast, which was expected to make control over illegal arms flow more efficient.

Libya has been in a state of a proxy war since the assassination of its leader Muammar Ghaddafi with the support of US/NATO airstrikes in 2011.

The NATO coalition threw more bombs on Libya, then the British and US military did on Nazi Germany. Since then, numerous competing militia and terrorist groups have been fighting for power.

The major warring parties to the conflict are the UN-recognized Tripoli government led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, known as the Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by General Khalifa Haftar. The LNA is backed by the parliament and is based in the eastern city of Tobruk.

The LNA is also supported by Russia, with Moscow welcoming Haftar’s efforts to oust terrorist militias operating in Libya. However, Russia does not provide the LNA with weapons, citing the UN arms embargo on Libya.

Moscow has repeatedly stressed the need to begin a dialogue between the LNA and the GNA to resolve the 10-year proxy war, which started the violent ‘Arab Spring’ wars in Africa (Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and Egypt) and the Middle East (Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Iran).

Russian diplomats must take France seriously and take their eyes off of Turkey. Turkey is a back-stabbing dud that won’t end NATO but France can put an end to NATO and create the EU army. Macron said “NATO is brain dead”.

Russian diplomats need take advantage of this opportunity with France and Libya could be a good starting point for Russia-France relations. However, Italy as a former colonial power, also has some of the oil exploration cards in hand.

France in 1967 exited NATO after the US ignored French interest and France can put an end to NATO in 2020. Take the opportunity Russia.

Sputnik / ABC Flash Point News 2020.