UN Libya envoy quits, cites 'indifference' in mediation efforts
Wednesday April 17 2024
The United Nations headquarters building is pictured though a window with the UN logo in the foreground in the Manhattan borough of New York, US on August 15, 2014. PHOTO | REUTERS
The United Nations Libya envoy said on Tuesday he had tendered his resignation to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, saying his mediation efforts had been met with "stubborn resistance, unreasonable expectations and indifference to the interests of the Libyan people".
Abdoulaye Bathily was appointed to the role in September 2022. It was not immediately clear when he planned to step down.
"As far as I am concerned, I have done my best," Bathily told reporters at the United Nations in New York after briefing the UN Security Council on the situation in Libya.
Libya has had little peace or stability since a 2011 Nato-backed uprising, and it split in 2014 between eastern factions in Benghazi and western factions in Tripoli, with rival administrations governing in each region.
Read: Libya's rival factions agree terms for long-delayed vote
Efforts to persuade the rival factions to hold elections have been the main focus of diplomacy for years, but there has been little progress since a 2020 ceasefire that paused most major warfare.
"Since the end of 2022, the United Nations-led efforts to help resolve Libya's political crisis through elections faced national as well as regional pushbacks, revealing an intentional defiance to engage in earnest and a tenacity to perpetually delay elections," Bathily told the Security Council.
"The renewed scramble for Libya, its position and immense resources among internal and external players is rendering a solution ever elusive," he said.