By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 10 March 2015:
Spain, backed by seven other nations, has asked to put on hold Libya’s request to . . .[restrict]for the UN arms embargo to be suspended so that it can purchase arms to aid its fight against Islamic State militants.
Libya’s ambassador to the UN, Ibrahim Dabbashi, made the request to the Security Council on 4 March. Normally such a request would be automatically approved unless a member of the Security Council specifically objected. Instead, in an unusual move clearly coordinated and designed to try and avoid been seen as taking an anti-libyan position, the United States, the UK, France, Chile, Lithuania, Angola and New Zealand have backed Spain’s request to delay the approval.
The arms embargo has been in place since the revolution. Libya had requested an exemption, asking to be allowed to import 14 MiG fighter planes, seven helicopter gunships, 150 tanks, 150 armed personnel carriers, 10,000 grenade launchers, plus mortars and ammunition – all to be provided through the Czech Republic, Serbia and Ukraine although it is believed that Russian suppliers would be involved .
In what is seen as a bid to exert political pressure on the Libyan government and the House of Representatives to agree to the UN dialogue process and a government of national unity, the US and UK had previously said that the embargo should only be lifted once a unity government was agreed.
It is also said that the Security Council has concerns that weapons delivered to Libya might fall into the hands of extremists. Insisting that the fight against IS was urgent and that Libya could not wait for the outcome of the dialogue talks, Dabbashi told the Security Council that the “Libyan army is ready to accept an observer to ensure that the weapons approved by the committee are in effect delivered to the official Libyan army”.
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