PRESS

Libyan crisis: Chergui "optimistic" about strengthening collaboration between AU, UN

OYO - AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, Smail Chergui, said on Wednesday in Oyo (Republic of Congo), that he was "optimistic" about the strengthening of collaboration, in the coming days, between the AU and the UN in search for a solution to the Libyan conflict.

"I am optimistic about the next step that will see a better cooperation between the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN), in the peace process in Libya," he told the press on the eve of the first meeting of the African Union Contact Group on Libya.

Meeting in the margin of the 33rd African Union Summit in Addis-Ababa, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, the AU commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat, and President of the African Union's High level Committee on Libya Denis Sassou N'Guesso have all agreed on "concrete actions" so that the AU plays a more prominent role in the Libyan crisis, said Chergui.

They have agreed, he continued, to "associate the AU in the libyan political talks of Geneva" and to prepare "deployment on the ground of a joint commission to monitor the ceasefire" in case of agreement between the two belligerents.

The Peace and Security Council (PSC), has therefore deemed it "necessary" that the international community "maintains its current efforts" to "silence all arms in Libya" thus "obliging Libyans to return to the negotiating table"

In this context, Chergui has lamented the continuing foreign interference in Libya and non-compliance with the UN embargo on weapons, stating that interference "complicates even more, the search for a solution to the Libyan crisis" According to the AU Peace and Security Council, "little progress has been made" in the process of peace since the last summit of the African Union's High level Committee on Libya.

He highlighted that the first round of Libyan political talks, held last February in Geneva, "has not seen any progress" Chergui said that the first meeting of the African Union contact group on Libya, scheduled for Thursday in Oyo, is intended to examine the situation in Libya and to prepare the inclusive inter-Libyan national reconciliation conference approved by the Berlin conference.

"Algeria, which is participating in the resolution of the crisis in Libya, will present to the participants in this meeting the results of the numerous visits made to this country," he said.

Four African countries will participate in the first meeting of the AU Contact Group on Libya on Thursday in Oyo that are Algeria, Chad, South Africa, which holds the presidency of the AU since the last summit in Addis Ababa, and Congo whose President Denis Sassou N'Guesso chairs the African Union's High level Committee on Libya.