By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 24 August 2014:
Caretaker Prime Minister Abdullah Thinni said that it was an “illusion” if one group thought that . . .[restrict]one political stream can rule Libya.
Speaking yesterday from Tobruk on Al-Assema TV’s The Parliament programme, Thinni said that this is “illusory”. No one view could impose itself on Libya. This would be back to Qaddafi and back to dictatorship, he explained.
With regards to whether the government has control over the Mitiga civilian airport and airbase complex, the Caretaker Prime Minister was emphatic: Mitiga is controlled by the Islamist groups, he declared.
When asked about the recent handover last month of Mitiga to government control, Thinni said that it was a “lie” and that the handover was “hypocracy”. They never handed over the airport, he stressed.
Thinni went on to reveal that the Chief of Staff needs permission from the militias controlling Mitiga airport before he could move a single plane.
However, the Prime Minister was not partisan towards either of the two main blocs of militias currently fighting over Tripoli and specifically over its main international airport.
Both Mitiga and Tripoli International Airport are “hijacked”, he stressed.
Thinni admitted that the army and police were weak and that the militias had many more weapons at their disposal than the official army. It is not in their interest that an army is built, he explained.
Nevertheless, Thinni still believed that no one political stream could impose their will on the majority of the Libyan people and that both sides were losers in the fighting and that both sides would lose in the long term.
The only solution to Libya’s problems is to sit down and debate and negotiate. Fighting would not be the solution, he stressed ,irrespective of who won the current fighting.
The use of force is not a solution and no one side could impose its will – just as Qaddafi failed to impose his will by force on the Libyan people, Prime Minister Thinni explained. [/restrict]
