Libya’s interim leader Mohammad Younes Menfi met with Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso, head of the African Union’s conflict-ridden North African country, to discuss plans for elections in December.
Libya’s new transition leader emerged from a UN trial launched in November in Tunis, then voted on in Geneva and confirmed by Libya’s parliament on March 10. The elections are tentatively set for December 24, but many conditions have not yet been met, Menfi and Sassou Nguesso said in a joint statement.
Ahead of the vote, “urgent challenges (include) the consolidation of the ceasefire, respect for the arms embargo, the unification of the country’s military and financial institutions (and) the withdrawal of foreign combatants and mercenaries,” the statement said.
“After all this, we will go straight to the elections for stability in Libya,” Menfi, President of the Libyan Presidential Council, told reporters.
In December, the UN estimated that there were at least 20,000 foreign fighters and mercenaries in Libya, including Syrians, Russians, Sudanese and Chadians.
“It is desirable that President Denis Sassou Nguesso speak directly to the Russian and Turkish presidents to get the mercenary to leave,” a Congolese diplomat told Agence France-Presse (AFP), requesting anonymity.
Sassou Nguesso is the Head of the High Level Committee of the African Union and the Contact Group for Libya.
Turkey had supported the Tripoli-based National Accord Government (GNA) against the eastern-based forces of Putist general Khalifa Haftar, backed by Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and France.
Libyans hope that the new process will end years of civil war that have hit the country since the challenge and killing of strongman Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
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