US Secretary of State John Kerry sits next to Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN, at the high-level meeting on Libya yesterday.
Reuters
United Nations
United Nations member states yesterday pushed warring factions in Libya to agree to a UN-brokered peace deal with a promise of international help to rebuild the country and a warning not to further delay an end to the conflict.
After months of stalled negotiations, UN envoy Bernardino Leon handed the Libyan parties a final draft of a September 21 peace accord aimed at ending fighting between two rival governments and their armed backers.
“There is no time to waste. We all know the threats that further hesitation will bring,” US Secretary of State John Kerry told a meeting on Libya on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly.
“If they make the right decisions ... if they forge a true government of national unity, and if they begin to govern as their people need them to govern, we, the international community, will be behind them and beside them each and every step of the way. They can count on that,” he said.
US President Barack Obama said on Monday that the world should have done more to avoid a leadership vacuum in Libya, where Islamic State militants have been able to gain a foothold in the city of Sirte.
Leon hopes the factions will sign the deal by October 20, when the mandate of the elected parliament ends. .
The deal proposed by the United Nations calls for a one-year united national government, with the current elected parliament as the legislature, and another chamber as a consultative body.
“As we work to ensure this text is accepted by the Libyans, let us be clear: All those who choose to remain outside this framework will be responsible for the consequences and suffering that will ensue,” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said those who believed they could delay a deal any longer were wrong.
“The international community cannot accept any further delays,” he said. “We are with you, we would never desert the Libyan people.”
