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Diplomatic sources reported that the UAE, during a session of the UN Security Council, blocked a proposal by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to appoint former Algerian Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum as the UN envoy to Libya.
One of these sources said that several countries, including France and Ghana, stressed, during the session devoted to the Security Council on Monday to discuss the situation in Libya, that this vacancy should be filled “as soon as possible” for this vacant position since last November.
Since the fall, the UN Security Council has only extended the mandate of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) for short periods of time, each lasting a few months, in a deficit caused in particular by the council’s failure to agree on the name of the next envoy to this country.
The mandate of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya expires on July 31.
After several unsuccessful attempts to fill the vacant position, Guterres last week proposed to the 15 members of the Security Council that Boukadoum be appointed envoy to Libya.
But a diplomat told AFP – on condition of anonymity – that “the UAE alone refused” during Monday’s session the appointment of the former Algerian minister.
The UAE, a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, currently represents the Arab group on the council.
According to several other diplomats, the UAE made it clear during the session that “Arab countries and Libyan parties expressed their opposition” to the appointment of Boukadoum as an envoy to Libya.
These diplomats did not specify the countries or parties that, according to the Emirates, refused to appoint the former Algerian official.
One of them only indicated that there is a “regional concern” about Boukadoum’s appointment, especially that Algeria shares a border with Libya.
This diplomat stressed that if the Security Council had gone ahead with the appointment of Boukadoum, the Algerian diplomat would have found himself facing an “impossible mission”.
According to a Libyan diplomatic source, the next UN envoy will be the ninth to hold this position in 11 years.
Russia blames the West
Without directly addressing the proposal to appoint the former Algerian foreign minister as a UN envoy to Libya, the Russian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, criticized Western countries that, according to him, seek to remain in charge of the Libyan file.
The Russian diplomat called on the Secretary-General of the United Nations to “follow a considered and balanced approach” in his search for a new envoy to Libya, stressing the need to take into account in his choice the views of the Libyan parties and regional actors.
Polyansky stressed that “the dictates of the Western camp, which considers Libya its backyard, must be rejected.”
At the end of the Security Council session, Britain and the United States strongly rejected the accusations made by the Russian representative to the West.
And Libya, which sank into chaos following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, has been wrangling over power since the beginning of March, with two competing governments, a situation the country had previously witnessed between 2014 and 2021, without any glimmer of hope on the horizon so far. Political crisis soon.
