By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 20 October 2014:
Prime Minister Abdullah Thinni accused the international community of not seriously supporting Libya in its fight . . .[restrict]against terror, accusing them of procrastinating and standing idle while the terrorists in Libya receive arms.
Speaking in an interview on Zintan TV Friday, Thinni acknowledged that “the world stood with Libya to overthrow the Qaddafi regime and they directed strong blows (against it) by using their air forces, and they destroyed Qaddafi’s arsenal”.
“But then since 2011, and to this day, the international community has not stood earnestly with us to support the state and to support the building of institutions and cadres”, he said, accusing the international community of dragging their feet.
“We have total difficulty in obtaining ammunition and weapons as a result of the UNSC 1973 resolution despite the fact that (Libyan) purchases (of ammunition and weapons ) are made by a committee of the Ministry of Defense, but the (UN) sanctions committee does not approve these purchases smoothly. In fact, it procrastinates”, the PM complained.
“They want us to fight terrorism. How would we fight them with stones or our hands?”, complained Thinni. “While the other party is obtaining arms and ammunition coming to them by illegal means. The world sees and is seen standing idly and does not take any decisive action about what is happening”.
“So we face the difficulties of arming our military and increasing its efficiency and we are making this move (to arm our military) from several countries. But there is a great difficulty, especially in the arrival of ammunition”, complained the PM.
With regards to his government’s recent contacts with France and the UAE, Thinni said that his government was “seeking various ways to create an alliance against these (terrorist armed) groups, whether from the political point of view and the access to equipment and technology in order to achieve security”.
“The goal of the visit (recently by Thinni’s Foreign Minister to France) is to coordinate for the subsequent visit of (my) government. It is a consultation visit to open priority files and then the general plan for the coordination of my visit in the coming weeks will be put in place”.
“France was one of the countries supporting Libya with full force. It was the state which had struck the (Qaddafi) convoy (during the 2011 revolution) which was heading to Benghazi. We hope that France will have a role in the restoration of stability and security in Libya”.
“The UAE is one of the countries supporting Libya as well as Egypt. They are moderate states that seek to stand with Libya to build its institutions. The UAE does not need Libya and its revenue and GDP are good, and its economic status is good. But out of patriotism they want stability for Libya”. [/restrict]
