Italy is asking the international community to step up diplomatic efforts to stabilize the situation in Libya and is ready to play a leading role in this initiative. The foreign minister said, Paolo Gentiloni, during an urgent report to the Chamber on the Libyan crisis. A position that follows the one expressed yesterday by six Governments, including the Italian one, in a joint note.
“A first, important appointment is the meeting of United Nations Security Council – recalled the number one of the Farnesina -, scheduled for today in the afternoon in New York. We expect from this appointment a definitive awareness in the UN of the need to redouble the efforts of mediation for political dialogue".
Subsequently, continued Gentiloni, “a crucial stage will be represented by the forthcoming renewal of the Unsmil mission, which the Security Council will have to decide on March 13th. We are working with our partners on the Security Council to equip the mission with the mandate, means and resources to accelerate political dialogue to stabilize and assist a new framework of reconciliation and a new government of national unity in Libya”.
In this process, the minister reiterated, “Italy is ready to take on leading responsibilities. We are ready to contribute to the monitoring of the ceasefire, we are ready to contribute to the maintenance of the peace, we are ready to work for the rehabilitation of the infrastructure, for military training in a framework of integrating the militias into the regular army. We are ready to heal and heal the wounds of war and we are ready to resume the vast cooperation program with Libya suspended last summer due to the conflict. The population must be aware of the benefits of reconciliation by the international community".
In any case, “in the face of the threat of terrorism, our strength is our unity – continued Gentiloni -. To say that we are in the front line against terrorism it is not the announcement of adventures, much less of crusades: this is what we are doing in the anti-Daesh military coalition, in Syria and in Iraq. It is the way in which a democratic country responds to barbarism and does so in friendship with the vast majority of the Islamic community, which refuses to have its faith hijacked”.
But the time available to act, underlined the minister, "is not infinite", and "the deterioration of the situation on the ground it requires a change of pace of the international community before it is too late".
Meanwhile, in the field, the Misrata brigades (which support the 'parallel' government of Tripoli) have regained control of Sirte, taking the city away from the Islamic State jihadists, who move from east to west.
The Egyptian anger that exploded after the beheading of the 21 Christian-Copts by the IS pushed the Cairo government to launch another air offensive against the positions of the caliphate in Libya. The raids are expected to continue after the news, released by the Libya Herald, of kidnapping of 35 other Egyptians (mainly peasants) taken from various areas of Libya by IS militants or by groups linked to the Islamic State.
