Amid developments, Italy voices concern about delayed elections in Libya
Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio held two telephone conversations, in which he focused on the Libyan crisis, with representatives of the United States and France.
The importance of this development is that it came after talks held by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Rome does not hide its deep concern regarding the failure to hold elections in Libya, which prompted Di Maio to focus on trying to find a way out to revive the Libyan political process.
In the context of the phone conversation on Monday, the Italian Minister and his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, discussed the electoral process and the political transition in Libya, and together they stressed the strong support of the Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General for Libya Stephanie Williams.
Di Maio and Le Drian said that there is full commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, as well as maintaining a constructive dialogue with Russia.
On the other hand, on the first day of the new year, Italy and the United States discussed working in a coordinated manner on different files such as Russia, Ukraine, Libya and Tunisia.
Di Maio and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken touched on these developments during the phone conversation, where they coordinated about dialogue with Moscow, regional support and Ukraine’s sovereignty, as well as the electoral process in Libya and support for political and economic reforms in Tunisia.
The US State Department said that the two sides discussed ongoing Libyan efforts to organize national elections without further delay.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a telephone conversation on the situation in the Caucasus, Syria and Libya.
This came in light of the vague indications given by the statements of the Head of the Libyan High Elections Commission, Emad Al-Sayeh, at the parliament session, especially when he indicated that the elections were postponed against the background of legal, political and security problems, which are obstacles that may make the new date impractical, thus it’ll be impossible to hold elections on January 24.
