“The General Command of the Armed Forces accepts the will of the people despite the burden of that trust, multiplicity of obligations, and the magnitude of responsibilities before God, our people, and conscience, and history,” Khalifa Haftar declared in a televised address on Monday, pledging that his Libyan National Army (LNA) rebel forces will take over control of the divided country.

“The political agreement destroyed the country. We will work to create the conditions for building permanent civic institutions,” he said, referring to the UN-sponsored pact that recognized the Government of National Accord (GNA) in the capital, Tripoli.

Haftar did not clarify whether an elected parliament based in the country’s eastern city of Tobruk — which has until now been protected by his LNA militants — supported the new effort, or what its future role would be.

Addressing what he referred to as “free Libyans,” he said, “We have followed up your response to our call to you to announce the fall of the Political Agreement, which has destroyed the country and led it to the abyss, and to authorize those you consider eligible to lead this stage.”

The foreign-backed military strongman did not explain how he had obtained any popular mandate.

The development came just days after forces loyal to the internationally-recognized GNA announced yet another offensive against Haftar’s LNA on the southern outskirts of Tripoli, following a series of recent victories that liberated several strategic cities from the rebel militants.

Since 2014, two rival seats of power have emerged in Libya, namely the GNA administration of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, and the Tobruk-based group, which has been militarily backed by Haftar’s LNA.

The renegade general, who is primarily supported by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and Jordan, launched a deadly offensive to capture Tripoli in April 2019. His forces have been bogged down outside the capital.

Numerous international attempts to bring about peace between the two warring sides have failed.

Libya plunged into chaos in 2011 when a popular uprising and a NATO intervention led to the ouster of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

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Officials gathered in Munich Sunday expressed concern about “the deplorable recent violations” of the arms embargo, while also reaffirming the conclusions of a summit in Berlin last month, which sought to move toward ending the civil war between Fayez al-Sarraj, Libya’ UN-backed prime minister, and his rival General Khalifa Haftar.

Stephanie Williams, a UN deputy special envoy who also attended the meeting, said that the situation on the ground “remains deeply troubling” and the truce “is holding only by a thread.” There have been “hundreds of violations reported” and “the arms embargo has become a joke,” she said at a news conference, Bloomberg reported.

Germany, Russia, Turkey, France, Britain, the US, China, Egypt, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates were among nations represented at the meeting on the sidelines of a high-level security conference in the Bavarian capital.

“Despite all the areas where we haven’t reached our goal, the path that we’ve chosen is functioning and the diplomatic engagement in the past days has been effective,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said at the news conference.

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The vote on the British-drafted resolution was 14-0, with Russia abstaining even though Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the 12 leaders who agreed to the plan at a conference in Berlin on Jan. 19, AP reported.

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said he abstained because the government has “serious doubts” about whether the resolution can be implemented and end the war between rival governments “in the way we’d like to see it.” He said the Berlin plan “has one defect … and that is a lack of clearly expressed consent from the Libyan sides themselves.”

“Events will show us who was right,” Nebenzia said. “And if the resolution will have a positive impact on resolving the conflict, I will be the first to acknowledge I was wrong.”

British Ambassador Karen Pierce countered that “the resolution is viable,” saying all it does “is give concrete expression to the commitments that leaders adopted at Berlin — and that included the adoption by President Putin.”

“We all want to see it implemented,” she said. “But it will be up to the parties on the ground and their foreign backers as to whether or not it gets implemented. So to the Russians and the others who have very close interests in Libya, I would think the remedy is in their hands.”

Since 2014, Libya has been divided between two rival camps. One is the Tripoli-based government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, and the other is based in the eastern city of Tobruk and supported militarily by rebel forces under the command of Khalifa Haftar.

A weak UN-recognized administration that holds the capital of Tripoli and parts of the country’s west is backed by Turkey, which recently sent thousands of soldiers to Libya, and to a lesser degree Qatar and Italy as well as local militias.

On the other side is a rival government in the east that supports Haftar, whose forces launched an offensive to capture the capital last April and are backed by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt as well as France and Russia.

Acting US deputy ambassador Cherith Norman Chalet told the council after the vote on Wednesday that it’s “very unfortunate that foreign mercenaries, including from the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group, are making an inclusive political solution harder to achieve” and making it harder for the two sides to get together.

The resolution demands that all countries refrain from interfering in Libya’s conflict and its internal affairs and observe a UN arms embargo, “including by ceasing all support for and withdrawing all armed mercenary personnel.” Russia sought unsuccessfully to change references to the growing involvement of mercenaries in the initial draft to “foreign terrorist fighters.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week that the Berlin agreement has been repeatedly violated by continuing arms deliveries to the warring parties and escalating fighting. He called the current offensives by rival forces “a scandal,” saying the commitments “apparently were made without a true intention of respecting them.”

The resolution welcomes last week’s cease-fire talks between Libya’s warring sides in Geneva and calls for their continuation “without further delay in order to agree a permanent cease-fire.”

It asks Guterres to submit his views on conditions for a cease-fire and proposals for effective monitoring of a truce, with a view to making detailed recommendations when a cease-fire is announced. The African Union, European Union, and the Arab League have been mentioned as possible participants in cease-fire monitoring along with the UN.

Germany’s deputy ambassador, Juergen Schulz, said the council was sending “an important signal for peace in Libya, reaffirming the concrete commitments of all the participants of the Berlin conference.”

He welcomed the timing — ahead of a Feb. 16 follow-up ministerial meeting of Berlin conference participants on the sidelines of the Munich security conference.

“The swift implementation of the Berlin conclusions is now crucial in light of the ongoing violations of international humanitarian law and reports of mounting civilian casualties,” Schulz said.

The resolution threatens sanctions against those supporting acts that threaten peace which Schulz said demonstrates the council’s “resolve to hold violators accountable.”

South African Ambassador Jerry Matjila, whose country chairs the African Union, stressed Libya’s roots in Africa, saying the arms embargo must be observed to prevent the conflict spilling into the Sahel.

“The African Union has been very ready to play a central role, including the issue of monitoring of peace,” he said. “The road ahead is going to be very, very difficult, long. So it really needs all hands on deck, and you couldn’t do that without African hands.”

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TEHRAN (Iran News) – Libya warring sides ended several days of UN-brokered talks without reaching a deal to consolidate a provisional cease-fire in and around the capital, the UN said.

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“These past few days we have seen Turkish warships accompanied by Syrian mercenaries arrive on Libyan soil. This is a serious and explicit infringement of what was agreed upon in Berlin,” the French president said on Wednesday, referring to a multinational summit held in the German capital earlier this month.

Since 2014, two rival seats of power have emerged in Libya: the internationally-recognized government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, and another group based in the eastern city of Tobruk, supported militarily by rebel forces under the command of a renegade general, Khalifa Haftar.

The rebels launched an offensive to capture the capital, Tripoli, in April last year. Despite intense fighting, they have so far failed to achieve their objective, and the offensive has stalled outside the capital.

Turkey reached a military agreement with the Libyan government recently and, on a request from Sarraj, pledged to send troops to Libya to help his government defend itself against Haftar’s attacks. While Ankara has since the Berlin summit said it would hold off the dispatch of troops to Libya, reports had already emerged of Turkey sending allied militants from Syria to the North African country.

The Berlin Summit was held with the participation of leaders from Turkey, Russia, Egypt, France, Italy, Britain, and the United States, as well as Sarraj and Haftar, in the German capital on January 19 to help broker peace in Libya.

The final communiqué of the day-long summit, the first such event since 2018, called on all the parties concerned in the conflict “to redouble their efforts for a sustained suspension of hostilities, de-escalation and a permanent ceasefire.” Participants also pledged not to interfere in Libya’s internal affairs and its conflict. They also agreed to “fully respect” the arms embargo imposed on the North African country by the UN in 2011.

However, Haftar refused to sign the joint communiqué produced in Berlin.

And on Wednesday, the Turkish military said that four frigates and a refueling ship were located outside of Libya’s territorial waters in the central Mediterranean, claiming that the deployment had been made in order to support NATO operations in the region and conduct security activities for maritime trade routes.

In his Wednesday remarks, Macron said the Turkish deployment of warships and militants to Libya was a “clear violation” of what Erdogan had promised at the Berlin summit. “It is a failure to keep his word,” Macron said.

The French president also dismissed a maritime deal reached by Ankara and the Libyan government last year that would allow Turkey and Libya to have access to an economic zone despite the objections of Greece, Egypt, and Cyprus, which are situated between the two geographically.

“France supports Greece and Cyprus with regards to the sovereignty in their maritime zones and, along with our European partners, condemns Turkey’s intrusions and provocations,” Macron said, adding, “I must reiterate that the prerequisite for any political solution in Libya is the cancellation of this document.”

In response to Macron’s comments, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy claimed in a statement later on Wednesday that France itself had been the main source of “problems” in Libya since 2011, when Paris played the leading role in a military campaign by NATO that ousted Libya’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi and when chaos spread in the country.

The statement also accused the French government of giving “unconditional support” to Haftar, accusing Paris of seeking to secure its say “on the natural resources in Libya” through that support.

For the past few weeks, Haftar has laid siege to the main oil fields in Libya, whose main income comes through exporting oil.

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Several Libyan and regional media outlets had claimed in recent months that hundreds of Sudan paramilitaries from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were deployed in Libya for fighting alongside Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces.

But a UN panel of experts on Sudan dismissed these claims in a report released on Monday.

“The panel has no credible evidence of the presence of Rapid Support Forces in Libya,” the report said, AFP reported.

It said there were, however, many Arabs from Sudan’s conflict-wracked region of Darfur and neighboring Chad fighting as “individual mercenaries” in Libya and they belonged to the same tribes that made up a majority of RSF personnel.

The UN experts’ report also said several Darfuri armed groups operating in Libya “have participated in various clashes and military operations alongside Libyan warring parties”.

Libya has been mired in chaos since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, with the main cleavage nowadays pitting Haftar’s LAAF against a UN-recognized government in Tripoli.

The deputy of Sudan’s ruling transitional sovereign council, General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, heads the feared RSF which has long been accused by human rights groups of committing widespread abuses in Sudan’s Darfur provinces.

The report said Darfur itself did not see any large-scale outbreak of violence during the reporting period — March to December 2019 — although the region saw inter-communal skirmishes, militia attacks on civilians and tensions in major camps housing people displaced by the conflict.

It said that a main rebel group in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army-Abdul Wahid group, has strengthened its military capability after its revenues increased following the discovery of a gold mine in an area it controls.

“The movement has been able to strengthen its military capability by acquiring new weapons and ammunition from local militias and engaging in a recruitment drive,” the report said.

The group fought Sudanese government forces for years during the regime of Omar al-Bashir, who was deposed during street protests in April last year.

The conflict in Darfur erupted in 2003 when non-Arab rebels took up arms against Bashir’s Arab-dominated regime, whom they accused of marginalizing the region.

The conflict left at least 300,000 people dead and displaced 2.5 million others, the UN says.

The SLA-Abdul Wahid group has not participated in ongoing peace talks with Sudan’s new transitional government which is negotiating with several other rebel groups in a bid to achieve a peace deal to end wars in Darfur as well as Blue Nile and South Kordofan states.

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Speaking to reporters ahead of EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels, Maas said Berlin Conference on Libya has been successful with agreement on new steps to support cease-fire and observe arms embargo.

He said, “We have decided to gather a follow-up conference early February at the level of foreign ministers”, Anadolu Agency reported.

Efforts would now focus on achieving a permanent cease-fire in Libya, Maas added.

Since the ouster of late ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, two seats of power have emerged in Libya: warlord Khalifa Haftar in eastern Libya, supported mainly by Egypt and the UAE, and the Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, which enjoys the UN and international recognition.

Libya’s UN-recognized government had been under attack by Haftar since last April, claiming the lives of more than 1,000 people.

On Jan. 12, the conflict parties announced a cease-fire in response to a joint call by the Turkish and Russian leaders. But talks last week for a permanent cease-fire deal ended without an agreement after Haftar left Moscow without signing the deal.

On Sunday, Haftar accepted in Berlin to designate members to a UN-proposed military commission with five members from each side to monitor implementation of the cease-fire.

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“Such a meeting is planned,” the presidential press service told TASS.

Germany is hosting an international conference, in presence of Putin and Erdogan, on Libya in Berlin on January 19. After the killing of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the country plunged into chaos followed by a period of de facto diarchy.

Currently, Libya has two executive authorities, namely the internationally recognized Tripoli-based Government of National Accord headed by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, and the interim government of Abdullah al-Thani, seated in the east of the country, alongside the parliament, which is supported by the Libyan National Army led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

Russia, Algeria, the United Kingdom, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, China, the United States, Turkey, and France have been invited to participate in the Berlin conference.

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The talks, to be held under the auspices of the United Nations (UN), are scheduled to start in the German capital at around 02:00 p.m. local time (1300 GMT) on Sunday.

Libya Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj and Khalifa Haftar, the commander of rebel militia groups, are also expected to attend the peace summit.

The conference is aimed at ending the armed fighting between the government and Haftar’s rebel forces. It will also discuss the interference of foreign powers in the Libyan conflict through the provision of weapons, troops, and financing.

“All foreign interference can provide some aspirin effect in the short term, but Libya needs all foreign interference to stop. That’s one of the objectives of this conference,” Ghassan Salame, the UN’s special envoy for Libya, told AFP on the eve of the meeting.

Draft communiqué calls for a commitment to non-interference, peace

In a draft communiqué seen by AFP ahead of the summit, the UN has expressed hope that all sides would sign up to a plan to refrain from interference and commit to a truce that would lead to a lasting end to hostilities.

The document calls on all parties to recommit to a UN arms embargo on Libya and raises the prospect of intra-Libyan political talks in Geneva at the end of the month.

The draft also urges all parties to refrain from hostilities against oil facilities in Libya, and also recognizes the Tripoli-based state oil company NOC as the sole legitimate entity allowed to sell Libyan oil.

Haftar’s forces blocked oil exports from the war-ravaged country’s main ports on Saturday.

The move to cripple the country’s main source of income was framed by the rebel forces as a protest against Turkey’s decision to send troops to shore up the Libyan government.

After months of combat, which has killed more than 2,000 people, a ceasefire was agreed to take effect on January 12 but was soon ignored.

Also, on Tuesday, Haftar walked away from peace talks in the Russian capital of Moscow.

Sarraj had signed a draft truce agreement during those talks.

On Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the European Union to support his country’s deployment of troops to Libya if the 28-member bloc seeks to end the conflict in the North African country.

Since 2014, Libya has been divided between two rival camps: the government in Tripoli, and a camp based in the eastern city of Tobruk.

Haftar, who is backed by Egypt, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan, is the self-proclaimed commander of an array of militia groups apparently supporting the eastern camp. He launched an offensive to capture Tripoli and oust the government in April.

His forces have been bogged down near the capital; yet, he has pledged to continue the offensive.

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