The resumption of military and security negotiations, or what is known as the 5+5 Joint Military Commission, comes after months of stalemate due to the fighting and Coronavirus pandemic.
The idea of negotiations’ tracks was created by the United Nations Support Mission in Libya when former envoy Ghassan Salame was at the H of the mission before he resigned out of health reasons, according to his statement.
Among the most important negotiations’ tracks that the UN mission urged to reactivate is the “military and security track”, which was launched with an international desire to end the fighting between the LNA and the GNA forces, accompanied by Turkish military intervention and the Syrian mercenaries.
These days, we are witnessing a revival of the military and security track. The spokesperson for the United Nations Secretary-General Stephen Dujarric said at a press conference that the joint military committee consisting of the LNA and GNA had resumed its work, and there was a meeting chaired by the United Nations Special Envoy to Libya Stephanie Williams.
Meanwhile, 218News learned from an informed source that the German capital Berlin was the host of the new meeting, and that those involved will actually start consultations June 04.
The anticipated consultations may be principally indirect and through intermediaries or facilitators of the dialogue in order to set an agenda for discussion or what is known as the concept of policy as the common ground that allows the parties to negotiate.
The resumption of the military and security track comes after months of its halt. The last round of negotiations was in Geneva, Switzerland, last February, when Salame came out with a statement in which he said that both sides – the National Army and the GNA – agreed on the need for a permanent ceasefire and that the goal of the talks was to listen carefully to the position of the two sides regarding their conditions for a permanent ceasefire.
The ceasefire that the UN mission called for repeatedly wasn’t achieved. Rather, things took a U-turn by the Turkish intervention that became more public through its planes and warships as well as thousands of Syrian mercenaries who will be a burden not only on the track of military and security negotiations, but also on the GNA will find it very difficult to deal with the mercenaries because their presence in Libya is linked to the foundations of settling the conflict in Syria, where the Syrian regime forces and the Russian presence prevail on the ground.
