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By Sami Zaptia.
London, 5 March 2019:
After Faiez Serraj, head of Libya’s Presidency Council and Government of National Accord and Khalifa Hafter, Commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), visited Abu Dhabi last Wednesday (27 February), Khaled Mishri, head of Libya’s High State Council (HSC) visited Qatar on Monday.
The HSC reported that Mishri and his delegation, met on Monday with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, during the delegation’s official visit to the State of Qatar.
It reported that the meeting discussed bilateral relations between the two countries and political developments on the ground in the Arab world and internationally.
It added that the two sides stressed the need to adhere to the Libyan Political Agreement (signed in Skhirat in 2015) as a reference for Libya to emerge from its current political crisis.
The HSC also reported that Mishri stressed his solidarity with the State of Qatar in its siege, hoping that the crisis will be resolved through the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The Mishri visit attracted much traditional and social media chatter following close on from the Serraj-Hafter Abu Dhabi visit.
Commentators and critics highlighted how foreign states were fighting proxie politics and wars in Libya. They highlighted how foreign support for the two main Libyan poitical camps was making stability and a solution to the Libyan problem even more difficult to attain.
Many Libyans are critical of both their domestic political camps for being concerned more by and for their foreign political backers than the desires of their citizens.
This lack of a united front and unified position on Libya by the international community, including France, Italy, Turkey, Qatar, Egypt and the UAE, for example, has been criticised by both Faiez Serraj and UNSMIL.
