The former UN envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, expressed his hope that the permanent ceasefire agreement signed in Geneva between the two parties to the conflict in Libya would be a historic event in the process of restoring peace to Libya.
On the possibility that some international parties lie in wait for this agreement and seek to spoil the ceasefire; Salame emphasized that the matter has become in the hands of Libyans themselves, indicating that the two parties’ signing of the agreement will be followed by the work of joint committees to implement the terms that have been agreed upon.
He added: “This is what matters on this historic day, when the Libyans said that they are tired of fighting and that they will communicate their decision to the countries that support them from outside, and their assertion that the fighting season has ended.”
The former envoy, during his conversation with Al-Arabiya TV, indicated that the Libyan war would not take place in one day, which prompted it to proceed in three “political, military and economic” tracks to solve the crisis, adding that the engineering that was developed in Berlin and stalled by fighting for a period of time.
Regarding Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s questioning of the “steadfastness of the agreement,” Salame said: “My dependence on the Libyans themselves and not on the foreign parties that pledged at the Berlin Conference that they will stop the interference. Now the moment of truth has come, the external parties must return to their senses and accept what the Libyans accepted.
He explained that he does not question the position of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and Fayez Al-Sarraj regarding the agreement, who granted a clear mandate to their two delegations to sign it, stressing that the Libyan component plays a decisive role at this stage, and that it needs to be taken into consideration by the international parties.
On the clause of withdrawing mercenaries within three months, and the extent of the concerned authorities ’ability to implement it,” the former envoy explained that just as all these mercenaries entered Libya in a period of less than three months, they could be removed in the same period as long as there is the will to do it.
He stressed, in the conclusion of his speech, that the Libyan parties asked the mission to witness the stages of the exit of these fighters from the Libyan lands, which is what the mission will work on to ensure their exit, believing that this is practically possible.
