No End In Sight To Libya Crisis After UN Envoy Quits

Tripoli, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th Apr, 2024) The abrupt resignation of the United Nations special envoy for Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily, is the latest sign of the failure of reconciliation efforts in the war-torn North African country, analysts told AFP.

The Senegalese diplomat, who on Tuesday tendered his resignation after only 18 months at the helm of the UN support mission UNSMIL, has repeatedly accused rival leaders of perpetuating divisions to serve their own interests.

Libya is still struggling to recover from years of war and chaos after the 2011 overthrow of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, and the country remains split between a UN-recognised government based in Tripoli and a rival administration in the country's east.

Speaking to reporters after submitting his resignation to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who accepted it, Bathily said the situation has deteriorated in recent months.

Taking aim at leaders in the country that has seen repeated cycles of violence since 2011, the diplomat decried a "lack of political will and good faith by the major Libyan actors who are comfortable with the current stalemate".

General elections scheduled for December 2021 were postponed indefinitely amid persistent disagreements between Abdelhamid Dbeibah's Tripoli-based government and the eastern-based administration backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

"The selfish resolve of current leaders to maintain the status quo through delaying tactics and manoeuvres at the expense of the Libyan people must stop," Bathily said, also condemning the foreign backers of both camps without naming them.

To Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at British think-tank Royal United Services Institute, Bathily's resignation did not come as a shock "for the simple reason that the process he was leading had been completely defunct for several months".