Tripoli, 13 November:
The new Prime Minister, Ali Zeidan, has imposed a three-week moratorium on visits to Libya by ministers from other . . .[restrict]countries. The move is to enable the new government, which is officially inaugurated tomorrow afternoon, time to settle in.
“It is a very sensible move”, said one European diplomat in Tripoli. “It will allow the new government to get its feet under the table without distraction.”
Foreign trade missions will come but those with a ministerial component have already dropped the accompanying ministers.
The decision was made at the end of last week following the visit of Italian foreign minister Guilio Terzi di Sant Agata. Libyans officials have, however, been quick point out that there was no direct connection between the visit and the decision.
An exception was made for yesterday’s visit by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Arnauld Montebourg, the French Minister of Productive Recovery (another term for Trade and Industry). According to officials the reason was that Fabius is foreign minister of a country that was one of the main supporters of the revolution, that the visit has already been postponed twice and that it was too short a time to change it once again. [/restrict]
