Libya's Warring Parties Agree to Reopen Land, Air Routes

On Wednesday, Libya's rivals agreed to reopen land and air routes and maintain the current state of calm on the front lines and avoid any military escalation, according to Stephanie Williams, the acting UN envoy to Libya.

The Libyan parties confirmed that all foreign forces and mercenaries would leave within 90 days of the agreement on a ceasefire, under the supervision of the United Nations.

Military negotiators from the Government of National Accord (GNA) and Libyan National Army (LNA) are resuming meeting of the 4th round of negotiations in Geneva.

Williams revealed that the two sides will hold a political dialogue in Tunis from November 9. She called on foreign countries involved in the conflict “need to take their hands off Libya”.

She said that the sides had agreed to delegate the Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG) commanders from both east and west to work with an National Oil Corporation (NOC) representative to present a proposal to restructure the guards to “ensure the increase and continuation” of oil flow.

The UNSMIL head added that they had agreed to make progress on an exchange of detainees between the warring sides and that the first flights between Tripoli and the eastern city of Benghazi would resume this week.

Williams pointed out that the 5+5 agreed on the need to end the use of inflammatory and escalatory media rhetoric, to halt the use of hate speech and they urged the judicial authorities to take the necessary deterrence measures to hold accountable the channels and social media platforms promoting hate speech and incite for violence, while ensuring that freedom of expression and speech is protected.

They also agreed to send a direct message to these channels and platforms, including those attached to both sides to refrain from airing content that constitutes hate speech.

The fourth round of the Libyan (5+5) Joint Military Commission (JMC) talks started Monday at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, with the participation of UNSMIL's head.

This round of talks will continue until 24 October. UNSMIL hopes that the two delegations will reach a solution to all outstanding issues in order to achieve a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire.

The UN body repeated the call made by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on 23 March, to establish a global ceasefire, while urging all warring parties to put feelings of mistrust and hostility aside and halt all acts of violence, according to the statement.

UNSMIL also praised the efforts made by the leaders of both sides to facilitate this round of talks, and thanked the members of both delegations for being present in Geneva despite the unusual circumstances caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2019, Libya was ranked as the worst country for press freedom by the World Press Freedom Index. It was also ranked 162 in the world, out of the 180 countries covered by the Reporters Without Borders report.

The country is experiencing a bad humanitarian situation as a result of the bloody struggle for power that began since the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.