UN Welcomes Resumption of Military Talks Over War-Torn Libya

Hours ago, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya welcomed the Libyan parties' acceptance to return to the military committee's talks, known as "Five Plus Five", based on the draft agreement that the mission presented to the two parties during the military committee's talks in February.

The mission stated that the new round of negotiations will be conducted through video, expressing hope to be prevailed by seriousness and responsibility modes.

The mission said in a statement that it hoped that all Libyan and international parties would respond to the desire of the Libyans to end the fighting and that the resumption of the military committee talks would mark the beginning of a humanitarian truce and to enable authorities to focus their efforts on countering the threat of Corona pandemic "Covid-19", in addition to facilitating the response to urgent humanitarian needs by local and international agencies.

The mission stressed the need for the parties to commit to fully authorizing their representatives in the negotiations to enable them to complete the ceasefire agreement, a large part of which was accomplished in the previous two rounds.

The mission called on the countries concerned with the developments of the conflict to respect what was agreed upon in the outputs of the Berlin conference, and the Security Council resolutions to ban arms and end all forms of military support permanently.

It is noteworthy that the group 5 + 5 (5 members of the Libyan National Army and 5 members of the al-Wefaq government forces) approved in the Geneva dialogue in February with the goal of achieving a permanent ceasefire.

The military track is one of three tracks, in addition to the political and economic tracks, was the outputs of the Berlin Conference on Libya dedicated to resolve the crisis, but the Military Committee suspended its work after two rounds of talks due to differences.

This was followed by a military escalation by the Al-Wefaq government, which launched Operation "Storm of Peace" backed by Turkish drones at the end of March.