UN envoy to Libya Abdallah Batelli announced his resignation, following a briefing to the Security Council in which he criticized Libya’s leaders, announcing the indefinite postponement of the Libyan reconciliation conference on April 28.
“There is no political solution in this country, which has been mired in civil conflict and political and security chaos since 2011,” Batelli said, adding that leaders in Libya put their personal interests above the needs of the country.
The UN envoy noted that the UN mission in Libya has made a lot of efforts during the past 18 months under his presidency, but “in recent months the situation has deteriorated,” denouncing “the lack of political will and goodwill of Libyan leaders who are happy with the current impasse.” “It is very sad because today most of the Libyan people want to get out of this chaos,” he said.
“In these circumstances, the UN has no means to move successfully,” the UN envoy said, adding that “there is no room for a political solution.” During the council meeting, he announced the indefinite postponement of the Libyan National Reconciliation Conference scheduled for April 28.
As Batelli said, “It’s frustrating to see officials putting their personal interests above the needs of their country,” expressing his “disappointment.” “The selfish determination of the current leaders to maintain the status quo through maneuvers and schemes aimed at procrastinating at the expense of the Libyan people must stop,” he said.
For his part, the Libyan Prime Minister-designate Osama Hammad responded in a statement to the statements of the resigned UN envoy to Libya during his briefing to the Security Council, considering that what was said by Batelli was in its entirety a reflection of the reality of his inability to perform his work over the past years in a way that reflects the aspirations of the international community represented by the United Nations to solve the Libyan problem.
Hammad pointed out that the briefing of the resigned UN envoy contained what supports the position of the Libyan government on his previous and wrong practices, which indicate his permanent bias towards one party over the other, and his continuous failure to bring all Libyan parties together in one conciliatory framework.
Hammad denounced the addition of a chair to the interim Libyan government in the dialogue session, which gave an official character to the division, adding that he is not surprised by Batelli this proposal, as he has always had a limited outlook to deal with all parties and deliberately ignored clearly that the Libyan government is the legitimate government mandated and granted confidence by the House of Representatives, and his explicit inclination for a government whose mandate and term have legally expired.
Abdullah Batelli was appointed Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Libya in September 2022 after the position became vacant for months following the sudden resignation of his predecessor Jan Kubis in November 2021, as he deliberately, according to observers, ignored the proposals of the eastern Libyan government for a political solution or even met with it with the same steps that he saw in the Dbeibeh government, and devoted all his efforts towards an outgoing government, which recently showed years after its appointment a failure in managing the state and the spread of corruption and security lawlessness.
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