‘The Supreme Commander of the Army and the Defense and Security Council announced that they have assigned the Border Guard Service and the Ministry of Interior to secure the western border crossings, during a meeting of the Defense Council, from which the President of the Presidential Council, Mohamed Al-Menfi, was absent for the first time.
This came during an expanded security meeting that included members of the Presidential Council Moussa al-Koni and Abdullah al-Lafi in their capacity as commander-in-chief of the army, with the Defense and Security Council, Prime Minister and Defense Minister Abdul Hamid Dabaiba and Chief of General Staff Mohammed al-Haddad.
Absent from the meeting for the first time, the head of the Presidential Council, Mohamed al-Menfi. In their capacity as commander-in-chief of the army, al-Koni and al-Lafi stressed the follow-up of the security situation in the western region and border points, and work to coordinate with the competent agencies to develop security plans to maintain the sovereignty and security of the borders.
On the other hand, US Ambassador Richard Norland held two separate meetings with the Presidential Council, the first with the exile, and the second with Lafi and Al-Kony, without explaining the reasons for the individual meetings.
Al-Lafi had announced that he was not aware of the meeting with Egypt, which brought together Al-Menfi, Khalifa Haftar and Aguila Saleh and the resulting statement, stressing that the Council’s decisions are expressed in official statements issued by it collectively.
Following his comments on the Cairo meeting and the tripartite statement, Lafi, Al-Koni, Tekala and Dabaiba left Tripoli in a four-way statement in which they declared their rejection of the existence of dictates from abroad and any preconditions regarding the planned meetings of the five main parties.