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By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 5 October 2014:
Britain’s special envoy to Libya has said that militia leaders must be . . .[restrict]involved in peace talks, echoing statements made by the head of the UN in Libya earlier this week.
Speaking on CNN, British Prime Ministerial envoy Jonathan Powell said that NATO and the West had allowed “chaos” and “anarchy” in the country and said that militia leaders needed to be included in ongoing peace talks.
“There needs to be a parliamentary track, a political track but also an armed track to get those guys to put their weapons down and come to the table,” Powell said.
He said to “leave Libya to its own devices had been a mistake” in the wake of the 2011 revolution. He explained that NATO had “played its role in getting rid of Qaddafi” but that in the aftermath “the West just walked away”.
Chief of staff to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Powell said it was difficult to draw direct parallels between the situation in Libya with Iraq and Syria. He said Islamist and Islamist leaning militias in the west of the country, unlike Jihadists in the Levant, were seeking the creation of a “stable society”.
The special envoy, who took part in the Ghadames talks on Monday, reiterated the UK’s support for the House of Representatives saying it had “democratic legitimacy”.
He said that the absence of a proper process in Libya had created a vacuum which had been “filled by violence”.
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