The UN envoy for Libya voiced hope on Wednesday that efforts
to establish a peace dialogue between the country’s two warring sides could
bear fruit within the next two weeks, Reuters reported.
Ghassan Salame said on a visit to Rome that contacts had
been established and he hoped to see results before the Muslim fasting month of
Ramadan begins in early May.
“I hope that the contacts we have established or
re-established among the two belligerents can bear fruit before the holy month
of Ramadan,” Salame told a news conference.
Commander Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) is
fighting forces backing Libya’s UN-recognized government based in Tripoli. The
LNA mounted an offensive on the capital three weeks ago but has since been
pushed back in some areas.
Salame, visiting Rome to enlist support from Libya’s former
colonial power for a possible ceasefire, did not elaborate on the nature of the
contacts with the two warring groups.
Italy, whose southern islands lie very close to the North
African country’s coast, fears a mass exodus of refugees from Libya which is
already a jumping-off point for boatloads of African migrants seeking to a new
life in Europe.
Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero, speaking alongside
Salame, said he had written to the European Union asking it to be prepared to
deal with a possible flight of refugees.
He referred to a EU treaty which he said would oblige the
bloc to help Italy if it were to be swamped with refugees from Libya. Under the
treaty, each member state would be required to receive a share of the refugees
arriving there.
Libya has been in a state of chaos since dictator Muammar
Gaddafi was toppled in 2011 with Western intervention and the latest flare-up
threatens to disrupt oil flows and leave a power vacuum that Islamist militants
could exploit.
