Berlin, GERMANY
Although the participants in the Libya conference agreed
on Sunday to enhance arms embargo in the war-torn North African country,
the ceasefire is temporary and the situation could worsen, said a former
official with Libya’s transitional government.
German Chancellor
Angela Merkel said on Sunday that all participants in the Libya Conference in
Berlin have agreed to respect the arms embargo and truce in the North African
country, which has been torn by fighting between rival armed factions since
2011.
Kemal Hozaifa, a former
official with Libya’s transitional government, believes the international
intervention is necessary under such a situation.
“The problem in Libya is that there is no
mutual trust between the two parties of the conflict. Therefore international
forces are in need to maintain peace, disarm or end the militias, and avoid
interference of a single country,” he said.
So far,
clashes in Libya have killed more than several thousand people and displaced
over 170,000 Libyans. More than 220 schools were also forced to shut down.
Most
recently, troops of Libya’s UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA)
led by Fayez al-Sarraj have been under attack since April from the troops of
Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA).
The Berlin
Conference comes after the inter-Libyan talks held in Moscow on January 13
under the mediation of Russia and Turkey. Al-Sarraj and Haftar were both in
Berlin but refused to sit or meet with each other as tensions remained and
differences too great between the two sides.
“The two
sides haven’t agreed to a permanent ceasefire and the ceasefire now is
temporary. The situation could worsen any time,” said Hozaifa.
High-level representatives
of Algeria, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey, the Republic
of the Congo, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, and the United States attended
the conference, together with representatives of the UN, the African Union, the
European Union, and the League of Arab States.
French
President Emmanuel Macron, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian
President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Egyptian
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were
among the participants.
Yang Jiechi,
a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central
Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the
CPC Central Committee, attended the conference as Chinese President Xi
Jinping’s special representative.
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