Italy wants US to do more to foster stability in Libya

ROME: Italy will push for greater US involvement in fostering stability in Libya when President Donald Trump and other world leaders meet in May, Italy’s deputy foreign minister said.

Italy hosts the annual meeting of seven of the world’s biggest industrialized economies (G7) in the town of Taormina in Sicily on May 26-27. It will be Trump’s first scheduled trip to Europe.

Speaking in his office, Deputy Foreign Minister Mario Giro said that one of Italy’s foreign policy priorities was to build international support to unify Libya.

People-smugglers based in the strife-torn country, where two rival governments compete with armed militias for power, have sent hundreds of thousands of migrants on boats toward Italy since 2013. Arrivals have surged more than 50 percent this year.

“In recent years, Libya has always been a priority of ours,” Giro said.

“We hope — and at the G7 we will say it — that this issue interests also the US.”

As well as Italy and the US, the G7 comprises Britain, France, Canada, Japan and Germany.

Libya split into a patchwork of rival fiefdoms after a NATO-backed uprising led to the overthrow of Muammer Qaddafi in 2011.

Russia appears to be backing powerful commander Khalifa Haftar, who is aligned with a government based in the eastern city of Bayda.