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By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 7 March 2014:
Germany and France have announced plans to secure arms . . .[restrict]and ammunition stockpiles in Libya. German Foreign Minister Steinmeier and his French counterpart Laurent Fabius made the announcement at yesterday’s Friends of Libya Conference in Rome.
“The Libyan people have shown immense courage in their fight for freedom. But Libya is still a very fragile state which is confronted by tremendous challenges,” Steinmeier said at the conference.
Calling the stockpiles as “the lethal legacy of the Qaddafi regime”, the German embassy in Tripoli said that dealing with them was one of the most difficult tasks facing the country. “This material, most of which is not under state control, presents a risk for the stability of the entire region. Germany and France have thus decided to tackle this problem by means of a joint project,” said an embassy statement.
Germany would make available a total of several million euros in the course of the year for projects designed to securely store arms and munitions in Libya, the embassy said.
“Libya can only achieve long-term stability and security if it establishes stable and widely accepted state structures,” it stressed. “We call on all political forces to play a constructive role in the constitution-writing process and to enable free and fair parliamentary elections to be held this year.” [/restrict]
