BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th January, 2020) Italy would join an EU peacekeeping force in Libya if the warring parties agreed a ceasefire and an end to arms shipments, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine.
"After that, the European Union will have the considerable task of guaranteeing all this. We will then need a European peace mission, in agreement of course with the Libyan parties and the United Nations," he said.
Di Maio stressed that the mission would need a mandate to patrol land, sea and air because that was how illicit weapons were being slipped into the war-torn country in breach of a UN arms embargo.
The idea to send an EU mission to Libya was floated earlier in the day by the bloc's foreign policy chief, Josep Barrell, who said that EU troops could assist Libya in keeping the ceasefire in place if it was agreed at this Sunday's Berlin conference.
The peace forum will be attended by the UN-backed prime minister of the Tripoli-based government of national accord, Fayez Sarraj, and the rival commander of the Libyan National Army, Khalifa Haftar.
Di Maio said Haftar could agree to cease fire despite his army having Tripoli suburbs in its grip because fighting would not end with the fall of the Libyan capital but rather morph into a bloody urban war.
