Libya Peace Talks, Conflicting Foreign Interests

In May, a similar meeting was held in France with the participation of warring Libyan sides and the major international actors in the war-torn African nation. The Libyan factions reached agreement on holding parliamentary and presidential elections on December 10. But Russia and the US opposed the election timetable and so it was delayed.

The security and social conditions in Libya are never good these days. The clashes in the capital Tripoli over the past month have left over 100 people dead and hundreds of others injured. Seven years into the civil war, a major part of the nation’s infrastructure is destroyed and people are deprived of even most basic services. The power outage is common and the people even cannot withdraw their money from their bank accounts.

Libya, a country that since the collapse of its former dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi following the NATO invasion in 2011 has seen no respite to heavy clashes of the rival militant groups, now is governed by two rival administrations. One is based in the capital Tripoli and is led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj who came to power following an accord reached between powerful parties in 2015 and has the backing of the United Nations. And the second one is based in the eastern port city of Tobruk, headed by Aguila Saleh Issa, the president of the Libyan House of Representatives since 2014 and is backed by General Khalifa Haftar, who is the commander of the Libyan National Army.

There is yet a third party to the negotiations in Libya: Khaled al-Mashri, the new head of the High Council of State affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement with roots across the Arab world.

These actors are now in Italy to negotiate a deal on the election date and a mechanism for a national unity government to end the deep division and bring back peace and security to the war-torn country.

Negotiations’ goals

Ghassan Salamé, the head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), in a report published on Thursday said that Libya is a wealthy country whose people are 'impoverished” by criminal groups which steal billions of dollars from the national treasuries. He added that the international unity to restore stability to the country is necessary. The Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who himself arranged the conference, in a Facebook post said on Friday that he did not predict that all of the problems are solved by the conference but the event could provide a sustainable chance of dialogue for the Libyans. He, unveiling the meeting’s slogan “For Libya, With Libya”, added that the main objective is to play a major role in stabilization of Libya through a full agreement among the key actors who play the main role in the country’s developments.

On the other side, the European Union announced the conference seeks to work out a solution to the crisis in the country and supports the UN's efforts towards elections, economic reforms, and restoration of security. The EU has sent its foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to the Palermo meeting.

Frail hope of peace under EU powers' cleavages

The resource-rich Libya has transformed a source of illegal migration and organized human trafficking to the Union’s member states and the chaos and collapse of government turned Libya into a safe haven for terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda. These are the main causes of the Europeans' obsession with peace in the country where the largest flow of modern African migration funnels through it.

Italy was opposed to the French push for the election. Rome was absent in May conference because Paris did not send it an invitation. Essentially, Italy, a former colonial power in Libya, views the African state as within its sphere of influence, arguing that Libya case has nothing to do with France. Libya is labeled the “fourth shore” of Italy.

France and Italy's competition is marked by the rivalry of the two countries’ oil giants Total and Eni in Libya. Paris and Rome back opposite sides in the Libyan conflict. While France is close to General Haftar, Italy supports the government of al-Sarraj.

Rome is determined to sharpen and guarantee its support to the Tripoli-based administration and its Islamist allies as they lost much of their clout as a result of the month-long clashes in the capital which killed over 100 civilians. Libya is struggling to introduce changes to the Libyan Presidential Council. Seeking to pave the way for economic and financial reforms, it forced the resignation of Fathi al-Majbouri, the deputy head of the Presidential Council and lobbied for the appointment of its favorable choice Ali Issawi to the sensitive post of Ministry of Economy.

Italy also wants to see Libyan army unification case out of the Egyptian hands. An alternative player to Egypt, Rome insists, in this case is the UN. While Egypt and the United Arab Emirates support General Haftar, Italy works towards delegitimization of the east-based National Army.

Add to this the disagreement between Russia and the Western powers. Under Gaddafi, Libya was an ally to Moscow. Russia, under President Vladimir Putin, wants its role back in North Africa as its successful presence in Syria against terrorism emboldened it to seek expanded play court, after decades of keeping within its own borders that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Haftar, himself a major player on the Libyan ground, traveled to Moscow for talks with the Russian officials before the Palermo summit.  

So, the Palermo discussions should at least bring the key players in Libya under a unity of visions, something many find unreachable in the present circumstances. After all, Italy by hosting the meeting mainly wants to display its role of leadership in Libya case and curb the sway rival France seeks in the African country, rather than reaching a real peace deal among the key Libyan actors.