Confronted with the worrying recent military escalation in Libya and also in view of the Foreign Affairs Council scheduled for Friday 10th January, we met in Brussels today to reaffirm our commitment to immediately halt the fighting around Tripoli and elsewhere and to discuss how the EU can further contribute to the UN mediation and to a swift return to political negotiations.
The EU is of the firm conviction that there is no military solution to the Libyan crisis and that a protracted conflict will only bring more misery to ordinary people, exacerbate divisions, increase the risk of partition, spread instability across the region and aggravate the threat of terrorism. An immediate cessation of hostilities is therefore crucial.
All the members of the international community need to strictly respect and enforce the UN arms embargo. Continuing outside interference is fuelling the crisis. The more the Libyan warrying parties rely on foreign military assistance, the more they give external actors undue influence on sovereign Libyan decisions, to the detriment of the country's national interests and of regional stability.
In particular, we stressed the necessity to avoid unilateral actions such as the signing of agreements which further exacerbate the conflict or actions which create a pretext for external interference that are contrary to the interests of the Libyan people, as well as to European interests, as underlined by the European Council conclusions of 12 December 2019.
On the contrary, the Berlin process and the UN mediation efforts put the needs of all Libyans to the forefront and suggest sustainable solutions to core issues such as unifying institutions, distributing the country’s wealth equitably, and outlining a realistic roadmap towards a political settlement.
We urge all Libyan parties to sincerely embrace these UN-led efforts and to return to negotiations. The EU will continue to support the UN mediation and will help implementing any decisions that may be taken in Berlin.
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The situation in Libya, where strongman Khalifa Haftar's forces have seized the coastal city of Sirte, is in the EU agenda. The foreign affairs ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy along with the EU diplomatic chief will hold talks in Brussels later today on the Iran and Libya crises.
The British foreign ministry said the talks would cover the fallout from the US killing of a top Iranian general as well as Tehran's latest step back from the 2015 nuclear deal. The emergency meeting comes as the EU scrambles for ways to contain the growing tensions in two major flashpoints on its periphery, as Iran threatens revenge for the death of Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad on Friday.
A senior Iranian official said Tehran was considering 13 scenarios to avenge Suleimani’s killing, according to the state-backed Fars news agency. British foreign minister Dominic Raab will hold a one-on-one meeting with his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, who has warned Iran against retaliating over Soleimani's death, before joining the German and Italian ministers for talks on Libya.
At noon, the European Commission has updated international media at a regular news briefing in Brussels.
Josep Borrell Fontelles, of the European Commission, had a LIVE Press conference following his meeting with foreign ministers of Italy, France, Germany and the UK on Libya in Brussels on Tuesday, January 7. [ Ссылка ]
