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Russian top diplomat slams West’s ‘mean and dishonest’ actions against Libya

Sergey Lavrov said said that the UN Security Council resolution was "most seriously violated and crushed"

SOCHI, October 16. /TASS/. Western countries behaved meanly towards Libya by violating the UN Security Council resolution on introduction of a no-fly zone over the country’s territory, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at the first Global Young Diplomats Forum held as part of the World Forum of Youth and Students, when asked by the audience.

"The UN Security Council resolution was most seriously violated and crushed," he noted. "This is about dealmaking skills of our partners, who just behaved meanly and dishonestly."

"Aviation of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’s Air Forces did not have to get off the ground, and it did not," Lavrov said. "The Security Council ordered that all necessary measures could be taken to provide a no-fly zone regime." This meant that "force could be used only in case a plane violated the no-fly zone regime."

"Instead of this, our counterparts from the North Atlantic Alliance deployed their air forces and bombed Gaddafi’s army, helped rebels, among whom there were a lot of terrorists, and liquidated the Libyan revolution’s leader," the minister concluded.

Libya’s state collapse started in 2011, when NATO countries backed rebels from the city of Benghazi who raised a revolt against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. With massive air support from the North Atlantic Alliance, the rebels managed to take the country’s capital after half a year of military action and then found and killed Gaddafi himself. NATO stopped its air campaign following his death.