MOSCOW, January 19. /TASS/. Stephanie Williams, Special Adviser of the United Nations Secretary-General on Libya, appreciated Russia’s supportive role in the settlement of the Libya crisis in an interview with TASS following her visit to Moscow.
"I greatly appreciate the support of Russia for the UN’s work in Libya and, I think, its very supportive call to the Libyans themselves to come together," she said.
According to Williams, at a meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin on Tuesday, both of them called for a peaceful and inclusive process of settlement in Libya and the need to support the Libyans.
"That means that all of the components of Libyan society are involved into intra-Libyan dialogue tracks, which is really something that we implemented specifically in the political track with the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum that we convened in November 2020, where, for the first time since the events of 2011, there were in that dialogue, representatives of the former regime, supporters of the government of Mr. Gaddafi," the diplomat noted.
Williams thanked the Russian Foreign Ministry for an opportunity to visit Moscow and exchange views on the current situation in Libya. She indicated that she was not scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, but that she would be "happy to return to Moscow at any moment."
On December 22, 2021, Libya’s Election Commission officially announced that the December 24 presidential and parliamentary elections were postponed, recommending the parliament to hold the first round of the presidential election a month later, on January 24, 2022, proceeding from the fact that the final decision should be made by the lawmakers. However, the parliament disagreed with the Election Commission’s initiative to delay the polls by only one month "for security reasons." They have not yet come up with a new date for the elections.