By Libya Herald reporter.
Tunis, 13 June 2017:
Martin Kobler has signalled the end of his tenure as UN special envoy during a visit to the Libyan capital today, describing it as “one of my last Tripoli visits” during talks with Presidency Council (PC) deputy Ahmed Maetig.
He said they looked at how the international community could continue its support for Libya moving forwards.
On his Facebook page, Maetig also wrote of Kobler coming to “the end of his mission”.
With a transition from Kobler seemingly imminent, a PC statement said the Maetig meeting discussed the role of the UN in the future and how to put into practice the Libyan Political Agreement.
Kobler later saw the PC’s foreign minister Mohamed Siala and said it was “always rewarding” to get his “wise advise on the political process and the role of UNSMIL and the wider UN in support of Libya”.
Despite the end seemingly nigh for Kobler, there is still no official news as to who his replacement will be.
In February, it was leaked that former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad would become the envoy for recently elected UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. However, the United States objected to the decision on the basis that Fayyad was Palestinian. It was then suggested that Guterres wanted to appoint an American, Richard Wilcox, who had been director of UN affairs in the Clinton White House, but that Russia had opposed it.
There are now widespread rumours that Ismail Ahmed from Mauritania, the UN Special envoy to Yemen is to replace him.
