Monitoring Desk
TRIPOLI: Major Arab nations boycotted a ministerial meeting on Sunday that was hosted Libya’s interim government with just five of the 22 Arab League members sending their top diplomats.
Even the bloc’s secretary general stayed away from the high-profile event. The snub underlines the Arab divisions over the Tripoli-based government, whose legitimacy is challenged by a rival administration in the country’s east, Arab News reported on Monday.
Arab heavyweights
Regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) didn’t participate in the gathering — a preparatory session ahead of a meeting of the foreign ministers in Cairo. Four countries, however, sent lower-ranking ambassadors or ministers while Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Arab League chief was also absent on the occasion.
The foreign minister in the Tripoli-based administration, Najla Al-Mangoush condemned what she viewed as “attempts by certain sides to crush Libyans’ desire to transform Arab solidarity into a reality.”
Libya, which holds the rotating presidency of the organization, is “determined to play its role in the Arab League [and] rejects any attempt to politicize the League’s founding documents,” she added. Libya descended into a decade of violence following the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed rebellion. The resulting power grab gave rise to scores of home-grown militias and prompted interventions by the Arab powers as well as Russia, Western states and Turkiye.
Since March 2022, an administration in Libya’s east backed by military leader Khalifa Haftar has challenged Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah’s government, arguing it has outlived its mandate. Haftar is considered close to Russia and Egypt.
The head of the rival government thanked the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia for “declining to take part in the theatrics through which the expired government tried to portray itself as being internationally recognized.”
Fathi Bashagha, in a tweet, also urged Libya’s western neighbours Tunisia and Algeria, who did send their foreign ministers to the meet, to “review their policies toward Libya and not to be fooled by a government whose mandate has ended.” The Tripoli-based unity government followed a UN-mediated peace process following Libya’s last major battle in 2020.
