UN’s Salame announces plan for high-level Libya meeting

Ghassan Salame, the United Nations special representative and head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, announced that a high-level meeting chaired by UN secretary general Antonio Guterres will take place next month.

Mr Salame is holding talks in Libya this week.

He revealed that Mr Guterres plans to convene a high-level meeting on Libya next month “on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly meeting” in New York, where an action plan to resolve the conflict will be presented.

“I wouldn’t have assumed this role if I did not believe that a peaceful and positive end to the Libyan crisis was possible,” Mr Salame said in a briefing for the Security Council.

He emphasised how important it was to get the economy running.

“Libyans cannot understand being poor in a country that is so rich with natural resources,” he said. “If we don’t address the economic challenges, the humanitarian ones will only get worse.”

He referred to a new constitution and calls for elections but said that the political conditions had to be right first.

“ISIL, terrorist organisations tied to Al Qaeda, mercenaries, arms dealings and the black market are all transnational challenges” he said, but working with Libya’s neighbours – including Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria – was essential to reach “a possible peaceful end for the Libyan crisis”.