Statement by Chargé d'Affaires of the Permanent Mission of Russia to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy at UNSC briefing on the situation in Libya
Mme.President,
We thank USG DiCarlo for briefing us on the situation in Libya.
We also thank Permanent Representative of India Ambassador Tirumurti for reporting on the activity of UNSC 1970 Sanctions Committee. We very much appreciate the efforts made by our Indian colleagues at this subsidiary body of the Council. We listened carefully to the remarks by Ms. Elham Saudi.
Distinguished colleagues,
The situation inside and around Libya remains generally stable. The Paris International Conference for Libya that convened on 12 November 2021 adopted a detailed final document that goes in line with the decisions of the previous multilateral meetings dedicated to the Libyan settlement. The international community sent a clear and explicit signal that the Libyan sides need to stick to the political “roadmap”.
We closely follow the discussion that is underway in Libya about the rescheduling of presidential and parliamentary elections. We believe this should not be protracted for too long. What is critically important is ensuring that representatives of all leading political forces can take part in the elections. This would guarantee that Libyans accept the results of the vote, and prevent dangerous escalation of the military and political situation in that country. Therefore we expect that Libyans will come to an agreemenent regarding all remaining issues in the near future.
Due to this holdback at the political track, other aspects in Libya are also lingering. Unification of state bodies (including financial institutions) has not been finalized, efforts are needed to normalize the socio-economic situation. There is no tangible progress at the military track either. By all means, it is positive that Libya has not seen any active hostilities for more than 12 months. Yet the sides take no further steps to preclude prospective escalation of the armed confrontation that still remains in place. This threatens to undermine the ceasefire or trigger another outbreak of violence through an intended provocation or just an occasional incident. We assume that the Libyan National Army is to play an important role in consolidating the armed forces. We welcome that during its retreat session in Geneva in October last year, the 5+5 Joint Military Commission endorsed a plan of action for a step-by-step, well-balance and time-synchronized withdrawal of all mercenaries, foreign fighters and forces from Libya.
Mme.President,
We will continue participating actively in the global efforts aimed at promoting Libya’s political settlement both through targeted engagement with the Libyan sides, and also multilaterally.
We are concerned that ever since November 2021, The UN Support Mission in Libya, that is supposed to stand at the core of mentioned efforts, has had no leader. Though it is Head of UNSMIL who should provide “good offices” to the Libyans so that they could promote Libyan-owned and Libyan-led political process. We believe it crucial that the Secretary-General should share his views as to prospective candidates for this office as soon as possible. The UN emissary needs to have relevant mandate that they should get from the Security Council. Unfortunately, at this point we have no such person.
When the Security Council negotiates a draft resolution on renewal of the UNSMIL mandate, we will proceed from what I just said. We believe this draft should meet the relevant tasks of the Libyan settlement that will change rapidly. Therefore, we suggest that our colleagues be flexible when addressing the term of mandate renewal. On our part, we reiterate that we are ready to discuss this in a constructive manner.
Thank you.
