By Jamie Prentis.
Tunis, 20 February 2017:
Faiez Serraj hopes that Russia may succeed where Egypt failed and finally arrange a new meeting between himself and Libyan National Army head Khalifa Hafter.
Following last week’s abortive attempt to talk to Hafter in Cairo, Serraj has said
Russia can be a key mediator between himself and Libyan National Army chief “We hope that Russia will play a positive role in resolving the Libyan crisis.”
“We hope that anyone getting involved in Libya will have a positive effect in the sense that the message that I want to sit down with the other Libyan parties, reaches them” he told Reuters at a security conference in Munich.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has said Serraj will visit Moscow this month. The PC head has been in contact with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and has met Russia’s ambassador to Libya, Ivan Molotkov.
“We sent a clear message,“ said Serraj, “We don’t want to exclude any military leaders. We want to unite the military forces. We want to fight against terrorism together and we want military forces to come under a political umbrella.”
Russia has become increasingly involved in Libya’s affairs. Ageela Saleh went to Moscow in December, only a month after Hafter. The armed forces commander-in-chief was also flown to the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov when it visited Libya last month.
