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By Hadi Fornaji.
Tripoli, 23 December 2015:
The UN Security Council this evening gave unanimous backing to the Government of National Accord to . . .[restrict]be formed by Faiez Serraj and demanded that the international community have no further dealings anyone else in Libya.
Chairman of the UN session which passed Resolution 2259, the UK’s UN ambassador Matthew Rycroft said afterwards that it called on all member states to cease to support and maintain official contacts with “parallel institutions that claim to be the legitimate authority but are outside the Libyan political agreement”. He added that it was essential to maintain the integrity and unity of Libyan state institutions.
“We have spoken with one voice for a Government of National Accord based in Tripoli” he said. adding that the door was still open to those “crucial” political leaders who had not signed up to the Skirhat deal. The UN was not treating these people as spoilers who were outside the process. “We are saying, come on in, sign up to the agreement and use negotiation and talking to add to the agreement if that is what you need to do”. He explained that as far as the Security Council understood it, the agreement had the support of the majority of Libyans,
There was no repeat of the specific threat of sanctions made when Bernardino Leon was still the UNSMIL chief. However, Rycroft said that if anyone remained outside the agreement “then the Security Council will need to uphold our responsibilities to see what further measures might be appropriate”.
Rycroft insisted that the international community was committed to helping the new government deliver Libyans a stable and prosperous future. It was also ready to help it “ tackle threats from terrorists and the criminal gangs that have contributed to the migration crisis in the Mediterranean”. He said that the UK was particularly concerned by the threat of Daesh (IS) but declined to be drawn on whether London would send weapons or participate in any military operations against the terrorists.
He also refused to be drawn on what wider international community’s support might be, saying that it was up to the Government of National Accord to decide what assistance it needed. He said that it was a question of sequencing. First the government had to be formed. “Then it will enter into discussions with us and set out what, in its view, it needs in terms of support and at that moment we will set out what we are willing and able to do”.
This would, he said, embrace the fight against Daesh in Libya, against smuggling and people-trafficking as well as assistance and capacity-building to help the new government run the country.
Rycroft said the new government should be formed within 30 days of the signing of the Skirhat agreement and that the clock was ticking.
The deal was agreed on 17 December which means that Serraj should have his new administration in place by 16 January. Rycroft side-stepped a question from a journalist who asked if the until-now internationally-recognised Beida-based government of Abdullah Thinni, remained legitimate until the Government of National Accord was formed.
He said that he thought that Martin Kobler, the UN Secretary-General’s special representative had been “very clear on that point” and went on to repeat his earlier assertion that it was important that the creation of the new government should progress as smoothly and seamlessly as possible. The status of the current government, appointed by the elected House of Representatives therefore actually remains far from clear. Equally, since the HoR has not approved the Skirhat deal, its allotted role in the Political Accord would currently seem in question. [/restrict]
