By Hadi Fornaji.
Tripoli, 8 July 2014:
Tunisia is to host a meeting of Libya’s neighbours on Monday and Tuesday in in the coastal . . .[restrict]resort town of Hammamet to discuss the security situation in Libya and ways of providing support for the country during the present transitional period.
Foreign ministers from Algeria, Tunisia, Niger, Chad, Sudan and Egypt as well as Libya’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdulaziz and representatives from the Arab League and the African Union will take part in the meeting.
The aim, according to a Tunisian Foreign Ministry statement, is to “exchange ideas that can offer [help for] national dialogue in Libya, transitional justice, the strengthening of the institutions of state and democratic transition in Libya, and security and stability”.
The meeting had been planned for June but had been delayed by political developments in Libya, not least the elections to the House of Representatives.
Part of the national dialogue envisaged is with the many Libyans who were supporters of the Qaddafi regime and who fled to Libya’s neighbours during the revolution. Numbers in Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria are estimated by those countries to total around a million.
In preparation for the mini-summit, Abdulaziz meet yesterday in Cairo with the Secretary General of the Arab League, Nabil Elarabi. Meanwhile, the Arab League’s special envoy for Libya, Nasser Al-Kudwa, was dispatched to Tripoli for talks with various political groups and forces in the country. He had been due to visit in May, but like the mini-summit, the visit was likewise postponed.
The Egyptians are reported to be particularly concerned about the possibility of Libya’s continuing lack of unity and security consequences while the Algerian press has reported that its intelligence services have been discussing with those of Egypt and Tunisia the dangers of the militant Islamist group ISIS Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) setting up in Libya. [/restrict]
