It is a full-fledged Paolo Gentiloni who spoke yesterday at the conference on the Libyan crisis organized by the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome, a few days after a crucial step in the direction of stabilization of the North African country: the liberation of Sirte, in whose area there is a very important energy basin which is about to be taken away from the ISIS forces.
SIRTE – "The advance demonstrates that an action by the Libyans against ISIS is possible, and Italy is working on this", said the Italian Foreign Minister during his long speech. “Progress on Sirte demonstrates that Italy was right to avoid the interventionist short-circuit, against which I fought for weeks: three months ago there were those who spoke of 8.000 jihadists in Sirte. Now they say there are 120 left. Like Italy, we worked to get the Libyans to face Isis and I think we did well”.
Gentiloni claimed the government led by Fayez Serraj, established at the end of 2015 by a United Nations resolution which announced, with the support of the international community, a new interim government based in Tunisia but neither the parliament of Tobruk nor Tripoli accept to recognize it. Just General Khalifa Haftar, who commands the armed forces linked to the Tobruk parliament, recently reiterated his challenge to the "national unity agreement government" (Gna) of the designated premier Serraj, adding: "I have no time to waste with United Nations".
POLITICAL STABILIZATION – In this regard, Gentiloni specified that the operation in Sirte was conducted by the militias of Misrata and by the guards of the oil infrastructures: "General Khalifa Haftar he had no role, he was absent on Sirte”. On the role of Haftar, the foreign minister reiterated that the forces supporting the general must recognize the unified political process and the government. The "difficult moment for Haftar, who was accredited as the only bulwark against Isis while other forces are now advancing in Sirte, must push to open a window to make the government more inclusive because the priority is Libya's unity".
On this, however, Gentiloni warned, “there is a lot of work to do. Significant steps forward have been made in the last two and a half months, but they are steps forward that the international community must cultivate and strengthen, because many open questions still remain. Considering the gamble won in Libya would be imprudent – Gentiloni said -, the Libyan reality is still extremely fragmented, the stabilization process is very complicated. Italy can play a significant role, but not alone”.
However, according to what the Foreign Minister said at the IAI conference, the diplomatic management of the Libyan crisis sees the positions of the various countries closer than what is recorded for the Syrian crisis: “There is no comparison between the climate and the diplomatic context. The Italian government has worked and will continue to work to achieve full stabilization of the country, involving all the forces in the field and increasingly aiming to strengthen the legitimacy of the Serraj government".
IMMIGRATION – Gentiloni did not spare himself even on the immigration chapter. "It is wrong to expect a barrier to be formed in Libya, where the new government is still fragile and embryonic, to counteract migratory flows," said the Italian foreign minister. "Analysts' forecasts on the increase in migratory flows on the central Mediterranean route have been denied and at present the entries from Libya are lower than last year", said the head of the Farnesina, specifying that in the last two-three months there has instead been an increase in flows from Egypt. “This does not mean that the Libyan coast guard does who knows what operations. The collaboration will be gradual and the training of the Libyan coastguard is also a process that will take its time. We must not burden an expectation that does not stand up”, added the head of Italian diplomacy.
ENI - Eni, a company that has been present in Libya for decades, was also present at the conference, where it has continued to operate despite the tensions of recent years. The director of Institutional Affairs Pasquale Salzano represented the company that has made the North African country a strategic outpost: “Eni has been present since the 50s with plants throughout Libya, to whose population it has also supplied electricity over the years. Our relationship with the country is very solid and the new government installed between December and January is certainly a new opportunity for the energy security process desired by the EU itself: the Mediterranean basin, especially the eastern one with the new discoveries in Libya and Egypt, it is a supply hub for all of Europe”. Eni's manager recalled that Libya is the first African country for oil production, the ninth in the world: "Before the 2011 crisis, Libya produced 1,7 million barrels a day, today only 300-400 thousand".
