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Turkey working with Libya’s GNA to reach ceasefire agreement, says Lavrov

The Russian minister added that the Russian Foreign Ministry and its Turkish colleagues are working on approaches that would ensure the immediate declaration of a ceasefire in Libya

MOSCOW, July 8. /TASS/. Turkey, along with Libya’s Government of National Accord, is working to reach a ceasefire agreement in Tripoli, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday on the outcomes of the talks with his colleagues from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt and South Africa in the format of a video conference.

"Our Turkish colleagues are working in this direction (reaching a ceasefire - TASS) with the Government of National Accord. I hope that they will be able to reach this solution, which is the only correct one in the current conditions," he said.

Lavrov added that the Russian Foreign Ministry and its Turkish colleagues are working on approaches that would ensure the immediate declaration of a ceasefire in Libya. The work is held within the framework of the dialogue approved by the Russian and Turkish leaders. "We are sending a clear signal that the first necessary and only step is the declaration of a full ceasefire," Lavrov stressed.

Currently, Libya has two parallel bodies of executive power: the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, and Abdullah Abdurrahman al-Thani’s interim government, operating in the country’s east together with parliament and supported by the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Commander Khalifa Haftar. For over a year, the warring parties have been fighting for Libya’s capital Tripoli.

On January 19, an international high-level conference on Libya took place in Berlin, with at least ten heads of state and government attending the event including Russian President Vladimir Putin. The conference’s final communique includes a call to ceasefire, as well as the call for foreign countries to refrain from intervening in Libya’s affairs, while it also proposes creation of a single government and launch of reforms to restore statehood that was demolished by NATO almost ten years ago. The conflict sides also agreed to establish a special ceasefire monitoring commission.