By Libya Herald reporter.
Tripoli, 27 October 2015:
Egypt has called on the Libyan Foreign Ministry to sort out the row between two . . .[restrict]rival diplomats and their supporters claiming to represent it in Cairo. However, there was no change in relations between the two countries or Egypt’s recognition of Libyan diplomats, according to Egypt’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ahmed Abu Zeid.
His ministry had never had to deal with a situation quite like it before, he said.
The row started last month when the former Consul-General in Alexandria Mohamed Salah Al-Dressi was suspended as acting head of the embassy after just one week in the job and recalled by the Beida-based government for questioning about allegations against him. Replaced by Tarek Shoaib, he refused to go and with his supporters, has held on to the embassy buildings in Cairo’s Zamalek district ever since.
The new acting chargé d’affaires has been forced to set up shop across the Nile in Dokki, with the Thinni government informing Cairo that it is the official embassy building for the moment and asking it to provide protection for it. The Beida foreign ministry also issued a letter to the embassy’s Cairo bankers stating that only Shoaib and financial controller Khaled Mansour Al-Asfar were authorised to signs cheques on the embassies accounts.
In this microcosm of the Libya tragedy, it is reported that at the beginning of the week, supporters of Dressi broke into a building in Heliopolis being used to house Libyan students and attacked a man carrying out work on the premises.
Last week in Beida, other supporters, mostly members of the Dressi tribe, who were demonstrating outside the government headquarters demanding his reinstatement, assaulted Zawia member of the House of Representatives Abdulnabi Abdulmuali when he tried to negotiate with them. [/restrict]
